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The Deerslayer

by James Fenimore Cooper · English · Gutenberg #3285 · 1,199,822 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Deerslayer

Author: James Fenimore Cooper


        
Release date: June 1, 2002 [eBook #3285]
                Most recently updated: March 11, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3285

Credits: Produced by Stephen Kerr, Martin Robb, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEERSLAYER ***




Produced by Stephen Kerr and Martin Robb





THE DEERSLAYER

By James Fenimore Cooper




Chapter I.


    “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
    There is a rapture on the lonely shore.
    There is society where none intrudes,
    By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
    I love not man the less, but nature more,
    From these our interviews, in which I steal
    From all I may be, or have been before,
    To mingle with the universe, and feel
    What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal”

    Childe Harold.

On the human imagination events produce the effects of time. Thus, he
who has travelled far and seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived
long; and the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest
assumes the aspect of antiquity. In no other way can we account for the
venerable air that is already gathering around American annals. When the
mind reverts to the earliest days of colonial history, the period seems
remote and obscure, the thousand changes that thicken along the links
of recollections, throwing back the origin of the nation to a day so
distant as seemingly to reach the mists of time; and yet four lives of
ordinary duration would suffice to transmit, from mouth to mouth, in the
form of tradition, all that civilized man has achieved within the
limits of the republic. Although New York alone possesses a population
materially exceeding that of either of the four smallest kingdoms of
Europe, or materially exceeding that of the entire Swiss Confederation,
it is little more than two centuries since the Dutch commenced their
settlement, rescuing the region from the savage state. Thus, what seems
venerable by an accumulation of changes is reduced to familiarity when
we come seriously to consider it solely in connection with time.

This glance into the perspective of the past will prepare the reader to
look at the pictures we are about to sketch, with less surprise than he
might otherwise feel; and a few additional explanations may carry him
back in imagination to the precise condition of society that we desire
to delineate. It is matter of history that the settlements on the
eastern shores of the Hudson, such as Claverack, Kinderhook, and even
Poughkeepsie, were not regarded as safe from Indian incursions a century
since; and there is still standing on the banks of the same river, and
within musket-shot of the wharves of Albany, a residence of a younger
branch of the Van Rensselaers, that has loopholes constructed for
defence against the same crafty enemy, although it dates from a period
scarcely so distant. Other similar memorials of the infancy of the
country are to be found, scattered through what is now deemed the very
centre of American civilization, affording the plainest proofs that all
we possess of security from invasion and hostile violence is the growth
of but little more than the time that is frequently fulfilled by a
single human life.

The incidents of this tale occurred between the years 1740 and 1745,
when the settled portions of the colony of New York were confined to
the four Atlantic counties, a narrow belt of country on each side of the
Hudson, extending from its mouth to the falls near its head, and to
a few advanced “neighborhoods” on the Mohawk and the Schoharie. Broad
belts of the virgin wilderness not only reached the shores of the first
river, but they even crossed it, stretching away into New England, and
affording forest covers to the noiseless moccasin of the native warrior,
as he trod the secret and bloody war-path. A bird's-eye view of the
whole region east of the Mississippi must then have offered one
vast expanse of woods, relieved by a comparatively narrow fringe of
cultivation along the sea, dotted by the glittering surfaces of lakes,
and intersected by the waving lines of river. In such a vast picture of
solemn solitude, the district of country we design to paint sinks into
insignificance, though we feel encouraged to proceed by the conviction
that, with slight and immaterial distinctions, he who succeeds in giving
an accurate idea of any portion of this wild region must necessarily
convey a tolerably correct notion of the whole.

Whatever may be the changes produced by man, the eternal round of the
seasons is unbroken. Summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, return in
their stated order with a sublime precision, affording to man one of the
noblest of all the occasions he enjoys of proving the high powers of
his far-reaching mind, in compassing the laws that control their exact
uniformity, and in calculating their never-ending revolutions.

Centuries of summer suns had warmed the tops of the same noble oaks and
pines, sending their heats even to the tenacious roots, when voices were
heard calling to each other, in the depths of a forest, of which the
leafy surface lay bathed in the brilliant light of a cloudless day
in June, while the trunks of the trees rose in gloomy grandeur in the
shades beneath. The calls were in different tones, evidently proceeding
from two men who had lost their way, and were searching in different
directions for their path. At length a shout proclaimed success, and
presently a man of gigantic mould broke out of the tangled labyrinth
of a small swamp, emerging into an opening that appeared to have been
formed partly by the ravages of the wind, and partly by those of fire.
This little area, which afforded a good view of the sky, although it was
pretty well filled with dead trees, lay on the side of one of the high
hills, or low mountains, into which nearly the whole surface of the
adjacent country was broken.

“Here is room to breathe in!” exclaimed the liberated forester, as soon
as he found himself under a clear sky, shaking his huge frame like a
mastiff that has just escaped from a snowbank. “Hurrah! Deerslayer; here
is daylight, at last, and yonder is the lake.”

These words were scarcely uttered when the second forester dashed
aside the bushes of the swamp, and appeared in the area. After making
a hurried adjustment of his arms and disordered dress, he joined his
companion, who had already begun his disposition for a halt.

“Do you know this spot!” demanded the one called Deerslayer, “or do you
shout at the sight of the sun?”

“Both, lad, both; I know the spot, and am not sorry to see so useful
a fri'nd as the sun. Now we have got the p'ints of the compass in our
minds once more, and 't will be our own faults if we let anything turn
them topsy-turvy ag'in, as has just happened. My name is not Hurry
Harry, if this be not the very spot where the land-hunters camped the
last summer, and passed a week. See I yonder are the dead bushes of
their bower, and here is the spring. Much as I like the sun, boy, I've
no occasion for it to tell me it is noon; this stomach of mine is as
good a time-piece as is to be found in the colony, and it already p'ints
to half-past twelve. So open the wallet, and let us wind up for another
six hours' run.”

At this suggestion, both set themselves about making the preparations
necessary for their usual frugal but hearty meal. We will profit by this
pause in the discourse to give the reader some idea of the appearance of
the men, each of whom is destined to enact no insignificant part in our
legend.

It would not have been easy to find a more noble specimen of vigorous
manhood than was offered in the person of him who called himself Hurry
Harry. His real name was Henry March but the frontiersmen having caught
the practice of giving sobriquets from the Indians, the appellation of
Hurry was far oftener applied to him than his proper designation, and
not unfrequently he was termed Hurry Skurry, a nickname he had obtained
from a dashing, reckless offhand manner, and a physical restlessness
that kept him so constantly on the move, as to cause him to be known
along the whole line of scattered habitations that lay between the
province and the Canadas. The stature of Hurry Harry exceeded six feet
four, and being unusually well proportioned, his strength fully realized
the idea created by his gigantic frame. The face did no discredit to the
rest of the man, for it was both good-humored and handsome. His air was
free, and though his manner necessarily partook of the rudeness of a
border life, the grandeur that pervaded so noble a physique prevented it
from becoming altogether vulgar.

Deerslayer, as Hurry called his companion, was a very different person
in appearance, as well as in character. In stature he stood about
six feet in his moccasins, but his frame was comparatively light and
slender, showing muscles, however, that promised unusual agility, if not
unusual strength. His face would have had little to recommend it except
youth, were it not for an expression that seldom failed to win upon
those who had leisure to examine it, and to yield to the feeling of
confidence it created. This expression was simply that of guileless
truth, sustained by an earnestness of purpose, and a sincerity of
feeling, that rendered it remarkable. At times this air of integrity
seemed to be so simple as to awaken the suspicion of a want of the
usual means to discriminate between artifice and truth; but few came in
serious contact with the man, without losing this distrust in respect
for his opinions and motives.

Both these frontiersmen were still young, Hurry having reached the
age of six or eight and twenty, while Deerslayer was several years his
junior. Their attire needs no particular description, though it may
be well to add that it was composed in no small degree of dressed
deer-skins, and had the usual signs of belonging to those who pass their
time between the skirts of civilized society and the boundless forests.
There was, notwithstanding, some attention to smartness and the
picturesque in the arrangements of Deerslayer's dress, more particularly
in the part connected with his arms and accoutrements. His rifle was in
perfect condition, the handle of his hunting-knife was neatly carved,
his powder-horn was ornamented with suitable devices lightly cut into
the material, and his shot-pouch was decorated with wampum.

On the other hand, Hurry Harry, either from constitutional recklessness,
or from a secret consciousness how little his appearance required
artificial aids, wore everything in a careless, slovenly manner, as
if he felt a noble scorn for the trifling accessories of dress and
ornaments. Perhaps the peculiar effect of his fine form and great
stature was increased rather than lessened, by this unstudied and
disdainful air of indifference.

“Come, Deerslayer, fall to, and prove that you have a Delaware stomach,
as you say you have had a Delaware edication,” cried Hurry, setting the
example by opening his mouth to receive a slice of cold venison steak
that would have made an entire meal for a European peasant; “fall to,
lad, and prove your manhood on this poor devil of a doe with your teeth,
as you've already done with your rifle.”

“Nay, nay, Hurry, there's little manhood in killing a doe, and that too
out of season; though there might be some in bringing down a painter
or a catamount,” returned the other, disposing himself to comply. “The
Delawares have given me my name, not so much on account of a bold heart,
as on account of a quick eye, and an actyve foot. There may not be any
cowardyce in overcoming a deer, but sartain it is, there's no great
valor.”

“The Delawares themselves are no heroes,” muttered Hurry through his
teeth, the mouth being too full to permit it to be fairly opened, “or
they would never have allowed them loping vagabonds, the Mingos, to make
them women.”

“That matter is not rightly understood--has never been rightly
explained,” said Deerslayer earnestly, for he was as zealous a friend as
his companion was dangerous as an enemy; “the Mengwe fill the woods with
their lies, and misconstruct words and treaties. I have now lived ten
years with the Delawares, and know them to be as manful as any other
nation, when the proper time to strike comes.”

“Harkee, Master Deerslayer, since we are on the subject, we may as
well open our minds to each other in a man-to-man way; answer me one
question; you have had so much luck among the game as to have gotten
a title, it would seem, but did you ever hit anything human or
intelligible: did you ever pull trigger on an inimy that was capable of
pulling one upon you?”

This question produced a singular collision between mortification and
correct feeling, in the bosom of the youth, that was easily to be traced
in the workings of his ingenuous countenance. The struggle was short,
however; uprightness of heart soon getting the better of false pride and
frontier boastfulness.

“To own the truth, I never did,” answered Deerslayer; “seeing that a
fitting occasion never offered. The Delawares have been peaceable since
my sojourn with 'em, and I hold it to be onlawful to take the life of
man, except in open and generous warfare.”

“What! did you never find a fellow thieving among your traps and
skins, and do the law on him with your own hands, by way of saving the
magistrates trouble in the settlements, and the rogue himself the cost
of the suit!”

“I am no trapper, Hurry,” returned the young man proudly: “I live by the
rifle, a we'pon at which I will not turn my back on any man of my years,
atween the Hudson and the St. Lawrence. I never offer a skin that has
not a hole in its head besides them which natur' made to see with or to
breathe through.”

“Ay, ay, this is all very well, in the animal way, though it makes but a
poor figure alongside of scalps and ambushes. Shooting an Indian from an
ambush is acting up to his own principles, and now we have what you call
a lawful war on our hands, the sooner you wipe that disgrace off your
character, the sounder will be your sleep; if it only come from knowing
there is one inimy the less prowling in the woods. I shall not frequent
your society long, friend Natty, unless you look higher than four-footed
beasts to practice your rifle on.”

“Our journey is nearly ended, you say, Master March, and we can part
to-night, if you see occasion. I have a fri'nd waiting for me, who will
think it no disgrace to consort with a fellow-creatur' that has never
yet slain his kind.”

“I wish I knew what has brought that skulking Delaware into this part of
the country so early in the season,” muttered Hurry to himself, in a way
to show equally distrust and a recklessness of its betrayal. “Where did
you say the young chief was to give you the meeting?”

“At a small round rock, near the foot of the lake, where they tell me,
the tribes are given to resorting to make their treaties, and to bury
their hatchets. This rock have I often heard the Delawares mention,
though lake and rock are equally strangers to me. The country is claimed
by both Mingos and Mohicans, and is a sort of common territory to
fish and hunt through, in time of peace, though what it may become in
war-time, the Lord only knows!”

“Common territory” exclaimed Hurry, laughing aloud. “I should like to
know what Floating Tom Hutter would say to that! He claims the lake as
his own property, in vartue of fifteen years' possession, and will not
be likely to give it up to either Mingo or Delaware without a battle for
it!”

“And what will the colony say to such a quarrel--all this country must
have some owner, the gentry pushing their cravings into the wilderness,
even where they never dare to ventur', in their own persons, to look at
the land they own.”

“That may do in other quarters of the colony, Deerslayer, but it will
not do here. Not a human being, the Lord excepted, owns a foot of sile
in this part of the country. Pen was never put to paper consarning
either hill or valley hereaway, as I've heard old Tom say time and
ag'in, and so he claims the best right to it of any man breathing; and
what Tom claims, he'll be very likely to maintain.”

“By what I've heard you say, Hurry, this Floating Tom must be an
oncommon mortal; neither Mingo, Delaware, nor pale-face. His possession,
too, has been long, by your tell, and altogether beyond frontier
endurance. What's the man's history and natur'?”

“Why, as to old Tom's human natur', it is not much like other men's
human natur', but more like a muskrat's human natar', seeing that he
takes more to the ways of that animal than to the ways of any other
fellow-creatur'. Some think he was a free liver on the salt water, in
his youth, and a companion of a sartain Kidd, who was hanged for piracy,
long afore you and I were born or acquainted, and that he came up into
these regions, thinking that the king's cruisers could never cross the
mountains, and that he might enjoy the plunder peaceably in the woods.”

“Then he was wrong, Hurry; very wrong. A man can enjoy plunder peaceably
nowhere.”

“That's much as his turn of mind may happen to be. I've known them
that never could enjoy it at all, unless it was in the midst of a
jollification, and them again that enjoyed it best in a corner. Some
men have no peace if they don't find plunder, and some if they do. Human
nature' is crooked in these matters. Old Tom seems to belong to neither
set, as he enjoys his, if plunder he has really got, with his darters,
in a very quiet and comfortable way, and wishes for no more.”

“Ay, he has darters, too; I've heard the Delawares, who've hunted this
a way, tell their histories of these young women. Is there no mother,
Hurry?”

“There was once, as in reason; but she has now been dead and sunk these
two good years.”

“Anan?” said Deerslayer, looking up at his companion in a little
surprise.

“Dead and sunk, I say, and I hope that's good English. The old fellow
lowered his wife into the lake, by way of seeing the last of her, as I
can testify, being an eye-witness of the ceremony; but whether Tom
did it to save digging, which is no easy job among roots, or out of a
consait that water washes away sin sooner than 'arth, is more than I can
say.”

“Was the poor woman oncommon wicked, that her husband should take so
much pains with her body?”

“Not onreasonable; though she had her faults. I consider Judith Hutter
to have been as graceful, and about as likely to make a good ind as
any woman who had lived so long beyond the sound of church bells; and I
conclude old Tom sunk her as much by way of saving pains, as by way of
taking it. There was a little steel in her temper, it's true, and,
as old Hutter is pretty much flint, they struck out sparks
once-and-a-while; but, on the whole, they might be said to live amicable
like. When they did kindle, the listeners got some such insights into
their past lives, as one gets into the darker parts of the woods, when
a stray gleam of sunshine finds its way down to the roots of the trees.
But Judith I shall always esteem, as it's recommend enough to one woman
to be the mother of such a creatur' as her darter, Judith Hutter!”

“Ay, Judith was the name the Delawares mentioned, though it was
pronounced after a fashion of their own. From their discourse, I do not
think the girl would much please my fancy.”

“Thy fancy!” exclaimed March, taking fire equally at the indifference
and at the presumption of his companion, “what the devil have you to do
with a fancy, and that, too, consarning one like Judith? You are but a
boy--a sapling, that has scarce got root. Judith has had men among her
suitors, ever since she was fifteen; which is now near five years; and
will not be apt even to cast a look upon a half-grown creatur' like
you!”

“It is June, and there is not a cloud atween us and the sun, Hurry,
so all this heat is not wanted,” answered the other, altogether
undisturbed; “any one may have a fancy, and a squirrel has a right to
make up his mind touching a catamount.”

“Ay, but it might not be wise, always, to let the catamount know it,”
 growled March. “But you're young and thoughtless, and I'll overlook your
ignorance. Come, Deerslayer,” he added, with a good-natured laugh, after
pausing a moment to reflect, “come, Deerslayer, we are sworn friends,
and will not quarrel about a light-minded, jilting jade, just because
she happens to be handsome; more especially as you have never seen
her. Judith is only for a man whose teeth show the full marks, and it's
foolish to be afeard of a boy. What did the Delawares say of the hussy?
for an Indian, after all, has his notions of woman-kind, as well as a
white man.”

“They said she was fair to look on, and pleasant of speech; but
over-given to admirers, and light-minded.”

“They are devils incarnate! After all, what schoolmaster is a match for
an Indian, in looking into natur'! Some people think they are only good
on a trail or the war-path, but I say that they are philosophers, and
understand a man as well as they understand a beaver, and a woman as
well as they understand either. Now that's Judith's character to a
ribbon! To own the truth to you, Deerslayer, I should have married the
gal two years since, if it had not been for two particular things, one
of which was this very lightmindedness.”

“And what may have been the other?” demanded the hunter, who continued
to eat like one that took very little interest in the subject.

“T'other was an insartainty about her having me. The hussy is handsome,
and she knows it. Boy, not a tree that is growing in these hills is
straighter, or waves in the wind with an easier bend, nor did you ever
see the doe that bounded with a more nat'ral motion. If that was all,
every tongue would sound her praises; but she has such failings that I
find it hard to overlook them, and sometimes I swear I'll never visit
the lake again.”

“Which is the reason that you always come back? Nothing is ever made
more sure by swearing about it.”

“Ah, Deerslayer, you are a novelty in these particulars; keeping as true
to education as if you had never left the settlements. With me the case
is different, and I never want to clinch an idee, that I do not feel a
wish to swear about it. If you know'd all that I know consarning Judith,
you'd find a justification for a little cussing. Now, the officers
sometimes stray over to the lake, from the forts on the Mohawk, to fish
and hunt, and then the creatur' seems beside herself! You can see in the
manner which she wears her finery, and the airs she gives herself with
the gallants.”

“That is unseemly in a poor man's darter,” returned Deerslayer gravely,
“the officers are all gentry, and can only look on such as Judith with
evil intentions.”

“There's the unsartainty, and the damper! I have my misgivings about a
particular captain, and Jude has no one to blame but her own folly, if
I'm right. On the whole, I wish to look upon her as modest and becoming,
and yet the clouds that drive among these hills are not more unsartain.
Not a dozen white men have ever laid eyes upon her since she was a
child, and yet her airs, with two or three of these officers, are
extinguishers!”

“I would think no more of such a woman, but turn my mind altogether to
the forest; that will not deceive you, being ordered and ruled by a hand
that never wavers.”

“If you know'd Judith, you would see how much easier it is to say this
than it would be to do it. Could I bring my mind to be easy about the
officers, I would carry the gal off to the Mohawk by force, make her
marry me in spite of her whiffling, and leave old Tom to the care
of Hetty, his other child, who, if she be not as handsome or as
quick-witted as her sister, is much the most dutiful.”

“Is there another bird in the same nest!” asked Deerslayer, raising his
eyes with a species of half-awakened curiosity, “the Delawares spoke to
me only of one.”

“That's nat'ral enough, when Judith Hutter and Hetty Hutter are in
question. Hetty is only comely, while her sister, I tell thee, boy, is
such another as is not to be found atween this and the sea: Judith is as
full of wit, and talk, and cunning, as an old Indian orator, while poor
Hetty is at the best but 'compass' meant us.”

“Anan?” inquired, again, the Deerslayer.

“Why, what the officers call 'compass meant us,' which I understand
to signify that she means always to go in the right direction, but
sometimes does not know how. 'Compass'for the p'int, and 'meant us' for
the intention. No, poor Hetty is what I call on the verge of ignorance,
and sometimes she stumbles on one side of the line, and sometimes on
t'other.”

“Them are beings that the Lord has in his special care,” said
Deerslayer, solemnly; “for he looks carefully to all who fall short of
their proper share of reason. The red-skins honor and respect them who
are so gifted, knowing that the Evil Spirit delights more to dwell in an
artful body, than in one that has no cunning to work upon.”

“I'll answer for it, then, that he will not remain long with poor Hetty;
for the child is just 'compass meant us,' as I have told you. Old Tom
has a feeling for the gal, and so has Judith, quick-witted and glorious
as she is herself; else would I not answer for her being altogether safe
among the sort of men that sometimes meet on the lake shore.”

“I thought this water an unknown and little-frequented sheet,” observed
the Deerslayer, evidently uneasy at the idea of being too near the
world.

“It's all that, lad, the eyes of twenty white men never having been laid
on it; still, twenty true-bred frontiersmen--hunters and trappers, and
scouts, and the like,--can do a deal of mischief if they try. 'T would
be an awful thing to me, Deerslayer, did I find Judith married, after an
absence of six months!”

“Have you the gal's faith, to encourage you to hope otherwise?”

“Not at all. I know not how it is: I'm good-looking, boy,--that much I
can see in any spring on which the sun shines,--and yet I could not get
the hussy to a promise, or even a cordial willing smile, though she will
laugh by the hour. If she has dared to marry in my absence, she'd be
like to know the pleasures of widowhood afore she is twenty!”

“You would not harm the man she has chosen, Hurry, simply because she
found him more to her liking than yourself!”

“Why not! If an enemy crosses my path, will I not beat him out of it!
Look at me! am I a man like to let any sneaking, crawling, skin-trader
get the better of me in a matter that touches me as near as the kindness
of Judith Hutter! Besides, when we live beyond law, we must be our own
judges and executioners. And if a man should be found dead in the woods,
who is there to say who slew him, even admitting that the colony took
the matter in hand and made a stir about it?”

“If that man should be Judith Hutter's husband, after what has passed, I
might tell enough, at least, to put the colony on the trail.”

“You!--half-grown, venison-hunting bantling! You dare to think of
informing against Hurry Harry in so much as a matter touching a mink or
a woodchuck!”

“I would dare to speak truth, Hurry, consarning you or any man that ever
lived.”

March looked at his companion, for a moment, in silent amazement; then
seizing him by the throat with both hands, he shook his comparatively
slight frame with a violence that menaced the dislocation of some of the
bones. Nor was this done jocularly, for anger flashed from the giant's
eyes, and there were certain signs that seemed to threaten much more
earnestness than the occasion would appear to call for. Whatever might
be the real intention of March, and it is probable there was none
settled in his mind, it is certain that he was unusually aroused; and
most men who found themselves throttled by one of a mould so gigantic,
in such a mood, and in a solitude so deep and helpless, would have felt
intimidated, and tempted to yield even the right. Not so, however, with
Deerslayer. His countenance remained unmoved; his hand did not shake,
and his answer was given in a voice that did not resort to the artifice
of louder tones, even by way of proving its owner's resolution.

“You may shake, Hurry, until you bring down the mountain,” he said
quietly, “but nothing beside truth will you shake from me. It is
probable that Judith Hutter has no husband to slay, and you may never
have a chance to waylay one, else would I tell her of your threat, in
the first conversation I held with the gal.”

March released his grip, and sat regarding the other in silent
astonishment.

“I thought we had been friends,” he at length added; “but you've got the
last secret of mine that will ever enter your ears.”

“I want none, if they are to be like this. I know we live in the woods,
Hurry, and are thought to be beyond human laws,--and perhaps we are
so, in fact, whatever it may be in right,--but there is a law and a
law-maker, that rule across the whole continent. He that flies in the
face of either need not call me a friend.”

“Damme, Deerslayer, if I do not believe you are at heart a Moravian, and
no fair-minded, plain-dealing hunter, as you've pretended to be!”

“Fair-minded or not, Hurry, you will find me as plaindealing in deeds
as I am in words. But this giving way to sudden anger is foolish, and
proves how little you have sojourned with the red man. Judith Hutter no
doubt is still single, and you spoke but as the tongue ran, and not as
the heart felt. There's my hand, and we will say and think no more about
it.”

Hurry seemed more surprised than ever; then he burst forth in a loud,
good-natured laugh, which brought tears to his eyes. After this he
accepted the offered hand, and the parties became friends.

“'T would have been foolish to quarrel about an idee,” March cried,
as he resumed his meal, “and more like lawyers in the towns than like
sensible men in the woods. They tell me, Deerslayer, much ill-blood
grows out of idees among the people in the lower counties, and that they
sometimes get to extremities upon them.”

“That do they,--that do they; and about other matters that might better
be left to take care of themselves. I have heard the Moravians say that
there are lands in which men quarrel even consarning their religion; and
if they can get their tempers up on such a subject, Hurry, the Lord have
Marcy on 'em. Howsoever, there is no occasion for our following their
example, and more especially about a husband that this Judith Hutter
may never see, or never wish to see. For my part, I feel more cur'osity
about the feeble-witted sister than about your beauty. There's
something that comes close to a man's feelin's, when he meets with a
fellow-creatur' that has all the outward show of an accountable mortal,
and who fails of being what he seems, only through a lack of reason.
This is bad enough in a man, but when it comes to a woman, and she a
young, and maybe a winning creatur' it touches all the pitiful thoughts
his natur' has. God knows, Hurry, that such poor things be defenceless
enough with all their wits about 'em; but it's a cruel fortun' when that
great protector and guide fails 'em.”

“Hark, Deerslayer,--you know what the hunters, and trappers, and
peltry-men in general be; and their best friends will not deny that
they are headstrong and given to having their own way, without much
bethinking 'em of other people's rights or feelin's,--and yet I don't
think the man is to be found, in all this region, who would harm Hetty
Hutter, if he could; no, not even a red-skin.”

“Therein, fri'nd Hurry, you do the Delawares, at least, and all their
allied tribes, only justice, for a red-skin looks upon a being thus
struck by God's power as especially under his care. I rejoice to hear
what you say, however, I rejoice to hear it; but as the sun is beginning
to turn towards the afternoon's sky, had we not better strike the trail
again, and make forward, that we may get an opportunity of seeing these
wonderful sisters?”

Harry March giving a cheerful assent, the remnants of the meal were
soon collected; then the travelers shouldered their packs, resumed their
arms, and, quitting the little area of light, they again plunged into
the deep shadows of the forest.



Chapter II.

    “Thou'rt passing from the lake's green side,
    And the hunter's hearth away;
    For the time of flowers, for the summer's pride,
    Daughter! thou canst not stay.”

    Mrs.  Hemans, “Edith.  A Tale of the Woods” II.  191-94



Our two adventurers had not far to go. Hurry knew the direction, as soon
as he had found the open spot and the spring, and he now led on with the
confident step of a man assured of his object. The forest was dark, as a
matter of course, but it was no longer obstructed by underbrush, and the
footing was firm and dry. After proceeding near a mile, March stopped,
and began to cast about him with an inquiring look, examining the
different objects with care, and occasionally turning his eyes on the
trunks of the fallen trees, with which the ground was well sprinkled,
as is usually the case in an American wood, especially in those parts of
the country where timber has not yet become valuable.

“This must be the place, Deerslayer,” March at length observed; “here is
a beech by the side of a hemlock, with three pines at hand, and yonder
is a white birch with a broken top; and yet I see no rock, nor any of
the branches bent down, as I told you would be the case.”

“Broken branches are onskilful landmarks, as the least exper'enced know
that branches don't often break of themselves,” returned the other; “and
they also lead to suspicion and discoveries. The Delawares never trust
to broken branches, unless it is in friendly times, and on an open
trail. As for the beeches, and pines, and hemlocks, why, they are to be
seen on all sides of us, not only by twos and threes, but by forties,
and fifties, and hundreds.”

“Very true, Deerslayer, but you never calculate on position. Here is a
beech and a hemlock--”

“Yes, and there is another beech and a hemlock, as loving as two
brothers, or, for that matter, more loving than some brothers; and
yonder are others, for neither tree is a rarity in these woods. I fear
me, Hurry, you are better at trapping beaver and shooting bears, than
at leading on a blindish sort of a trail. Ha! there's what you wish to
find, a'ter all!”

“Now, Deerslayer, this is one of your Delaware pretensions, for hang me
if I see anything but these trees, which do seem to start up around us
in a most onaccountable and perplexing manner.”

“Look this-a-way, Hurry--here, in a line with the black oak--don't
you see the crooked sapling that is hooked up in the branches of the
bass-wood, near it? Now, that sapling was once snow-ridden, and got
the bend by its weight; but it never straightened itself, and fastened
itself in among the bass-wood branches in the way you see. The hand of
man did that act of kindness for it.”

“That hand was mine!” exclaimed Hurry; “I found the slender young
thing bent to the airth, like an unfortunate creatur' borne down by
misfortune, and stuck it up where you see it. After all, Deerslayer, I
must allow, you're getting to have an oncommon good eye for the woods!”

“'Tis improving, Hurry--'tis improving I will acknowledge; but 'tis only
a child's eye, compared to some I know. There's Tamenund, now, though
a man so old that few remember when he was in his prime, Tamenund lets
nothing escape his look, which is more like the scent of a hound than
the sight of an eye. Then Uncas, the father of Chingachgook, and the
lawful chief of the Mohicans, is another that it is almost hopeless to
pass unseen. I'm improving, I will allow--I'm improving, but far from
being perfect, as yet.”

“And who is this Chingachgook, of whom you talk so much, Deerslayer!”
 asked Hurry, as he moved off in the direction of the righted sapling; “a
loping red-skin, at the best, I make no question.”

“Not so, Hurry, but the best of loping red-skins, as you call 'em. If he
had his rights, he would be a great chief; but, as it is, he is only
a brave and just-minded Delaware; respected, and even obeyed in some
things, 'tis true, but of a fallen race, and belonging to a fallen
people. Ah! Harry March, 'twould warm the heart within you to sit in
their lodges of a winter's night, and listen to the traditions of the
ancient greatness and power of the Mohicans!”

“Harkee, fri'nd Nathaniel,” said Hurry, stopping short to face his
companion, in order that his words might carry greater weight with them,
“if a man believed all that other people choose to say in their own
favor, he might get an oversized opinion of them, and an undersized
opinion of himself. These red-skins are notable boasters, and I set down
more than half of their traditions as pure talk.”

“There is truth in what you say, Hurry, I'll not deny it, for I've seen
it, and believe it. They do boast, but then that is a gift from natur';
and it's sinful to withstand nat'ral gifts. See; this is the spot you
come to find!” This remark cut short the discourse, and both the men
now gave all their attention to the object immediately before them.
Deerslayer pointed out to his companion the trunk of a huge linden, or
bass-wood, as it is termed in the language of the country, which had
filled its time, and fallen by its own weight. This tree, like so many
millions of its brethren, lay where it had fallen, and was mouldering
under the slow but certain influence of the seasons. The decay, however,
had attacked its centre, even while it stood erect in the pride of
vegetation, bellowing out its heart, as disease sometimes destroys the
vitals of animal life, even while a fair exterior is presented to the
observer. As the trunk lay stretched for near a hundred feet along the
earth, the quick eye of the hunter detected this peculiarity, and from
this and other circumstances, he knew it to be the tree of which March
was in search.

“Ay, here we have what we want,” cried Hurry, looking in at the larger
end of the linden; “everything is as snug as if it had been left in an
old woman's cupboard. Come, lend me a hand, Deerslayer, and we'll be
afloat in half an hour.”

At this call the hunter joined his companion, and the two went to work
deliberately and regularly, like men accustomed to the sort of thing in
which they were employed. In the first place, Hurry removed some pieces
of bark that lay before the large opening in the tree, and which the
other declared to be disposed in a way that would have been more likely
to attract attention than to conceal the cover, had any straggler passed
that way. The two then drew out a bark canoe, containing its seats,
paddles, and other appliances, even to fishing-lines and rods. This
vessel was by no means small; but such was its comparative lightness,
and so gigantic was the strength of Hurry, that the latter shouldered it
with seeming ease, declining all assistance, even in the act of raising
it to the awkward position in which he was obliged to hold it.

“Lead ahead, Deerslayer,” said March, “and open the bushes; the rest I
can do for myself.”

The other obeyed, and the men left the spot, Deerslayer clearing the
way for his companion, and inclining to the right or to the left, as the
latter directed. In about ten minutes they both broke suddenly into the
brilliant light of the sun, on a low gravelly point, that was washed by
water on quite half its outline.

An exclamation of surprise broke from the lips of Deerslayer, an
exclamation that was low and guardedly made, however, for his habits
were much more thoughtful and regulated than those of the reckless
Hurry, when on reaching the margin of the lake, he beheld the view that
unexpectedly met his gaze. It was, in truth, sufficiently striking to
merit a brief description. On a level with the point lay a broad sheet
of water, so placid and limpid that it resembled a bed of the pure
mountain atmosphere, compressed into a setting of hills and woods.
Its length was about three leagues, while its breadth was irregular,
expanding to half a league, or even more, opposite to the point, and
contracting to less than half that distance, more to the southward. Of
course, its margin was irregular, being indented by bays, and broken
by many projecting, low points. At its northern, or nearest end, it was
bounded by an isolated mountain, lower land falling off east and west,
gracefully relieving the sweep of the outline. Still the character
of the country was mountainous; high hills, or low mountains, rising
abruptly from the water, on quite nine tenths of its circuit. The
exceptions, indeed, only served a little to vary the scene; and
even beyond the parts of the shore that were comparatively low, the
background was high, though more distant.

But the most striking peculiarities of this scene were its solemn
solitude and sweet repose. On all sides, wherever the eye turned,
nothing met it but the mirror-like surface of the lake, the placid view
of heaven, and the dense setting of woods. So rich and fleecy were the
outlines of the forest, that scarce an opening could be seen, the
whole visible earth, from the rounded mountain-top to the water's edge,
presenting one unvaried hue of unbroken verdure. As if vegetation were
not satisfied with a triumph so complete, the trees overhung the lake
itself, shooting out towards the light; and there were miles along its
eastern shore, where a boat might have pulled beneath the branches of
dark Rembrandt-looking hemlocks, “quivering aspens,” and melancholy
pines. In a word, the hand of man had never yet defaced or deformed any
part of this native scene, which lay bathed in the sunlight, a glorious
picture of affluent forest grandeur, softened by the balminess of June,
and relieved by the beautiful variety afforded by the presence of so
broad an expanse of water.

“This is grand!--'tis solemn!--'tis an edication of itself, to look
upon!” exclaimed Deerslayer, as he stood leaning on his rifle, and
gazing to the right and left, north and south, above and beneath, in
whichever direction his eye could wander; “not a tree disturbed even by
red-skin hand, as I can discover, but everything left in the ordering of
the Lord, to live and die according to his own designs and laws! Hurry,
your Judith ought to be a moral and well disposed young woman, if
she has passed half the time you mention in the centre of a spot so
favored.”

“That's naked truth; and yet the gal has the vagaries. All her time
has not been passed here, howsoever, old Tom having the custom, afore
I know'd him, of going to spend the winters in the neighborhood of the
settlers, or under the guns of the forts. No, no, Jude has caught
more than is for her good from the settlers, and especially from the
gallantifying officers.”

“If she has--if she has, Hurry, this is a school to set her mind right
ag'in. But what is this I see off here, abreast of us, that seems too
small for an island, and too large for a boat, though it stands in the
midst of the water!

“Why, that is what these galantine gentry from the forts call Muskrat
Castle; and old Tom himself will grin at the name, though it bears so
hard on his own natur' and character. 'Tis the stationary house, there
being two; this, which never moves, and the other, that floats, being
sometimes in one part of the lake and sometimes in another. The last
goes by the name of the ark, though what may be the meaning of the word
is more than I can tell you.”

“It must come from the missionaries, Hurry, whom I have heard speak
and read of such a thing. They say that the 'arth was once covered with
water, and that Noah, with his children, was saved from drowning by
building a vessel called an ark, in which he embarked in season. Some of
the Delawares believe this tradition, and some deny it; but it behooves
you and me, as white men born, to put our faith in its truth. Do you see
anything of this ark?”

“'Tis down south, no doubt, or anchored in some of the bays. But the
canoe is ready, and fifteen minutes will carry two such paddles as
your'n and mine to the castle.”

At this suggestion, Deerslayer helped his companion to place the
different articles in the canoe, which was already afloat. This was no
sooner done than the two frontiermen embarked, and by a vigorous push
sent the light bark some eight or ten rods from the shore. Hurry now
took the seat in the stern, while Deerslayer placed himself forward, and
by leisurely but steady strokes of the paddles, the canoe glided across
the placid sheet, towards the extraordinary-looking structure that the
former had styled Muskrat Castle. Several times the men ceased paddling,
and looked about them at the scene, as new glimpses opened from behind
points, enabling them to see farther down the lake, or to get broader
views of the wooded mountains. The only changes, however, were in the
new forms of the hills, the varying curvature of the bays, and the wider
reaches of the valley south; the whole earth apparently being clothed in
a gala-dress of leaves.

“This is a sight to warm the heart!” exclaimed Deerslayer, when they had
thus stopped for the fourth or fifth time; “the lake seems made to let
us get an insight into the noble forests; and land and water alike stand
in the beauty of God's providence! Do you say, Hurry, that there is no
man who calls himself lawful owner of all these glories?”

“None but the King, lad. He may pretend to some right of that natur',
but he is so far away that his claim will never trouble old Tom Hutter,
who has got possession, and is like to keep it as long as his life
lasts. Tom is no squatter, not being on land; I call him a floater.”

“I invy that man! I know it's wrong, and I strive ag'in the feelin', but
I invy that man! Don't think, Hurry, that I'm consorting any plan to put
myself in his moccasins, for such a thought doesn't harbor in my mind;
but I can't help a little invy! 'Tis a nat'ral feelin', and the best of
us are but nat'ral, a'ter all, and give way to such feelin's at times.”

“You've only to marry Hetty to inherit half the estate,” cried Hurry,
laughing; “the gal is comely; nay, if it wasn't for her sister's beauty
she would be even handsome; and then her wits are so small that you may
easily convart her into one of your own way of thinking, in all things.
Do you take Hetty off the old fellow's hands, and I'll engage he'll give
you an interest in every deer you can knock over within five miles of
his lake.”

“Does game abound!” suddenly demanded the other, who paid but little
attention to March's raillery.

“It has the country to itself. Scarce a trigger is pulled on it; and as
for the trappers, this is not a region they greatly frequent. I ought
not to be so much here myself, but Jude pulls one way, while the beaver
pulls another. More than a hundred Spanish dollars has that creatur'
cost me the last two seasons, and yet I could not forego the wish to
look upon her face once more.”

“Do the redmen often visit this lake, Hurry?” continued Deerslayer,
pursuing his own train of thought.

“Why, they come and go; sometimes in parties, and sometimes singly. The
country seems to belong to no native tribe in particular; and so it has
fallen into the hands of the Hutter tribe. The old man tells me that
some sharp ones have been wheedling the Mohawks for an Indian deed,
in order to get a title out of the colony; but nothing has come of it,
seeing that no one heavy enough for such a trade has yet meddled
with the matter. The hunters have a good life-lease still of this
wilderness.”

“So much the better, so much the better, Hurry. If I was King of
England, the man that felled one of these trees without good occasion
for the timber, should be banished to a desarted and forlorn region, in
which no fourfooted animal ever trod. Right glad am I that Chingachgook
app'inted our meeting on this lake, for hitherto eye of mine never
looked on such a glorious spectacle.”

“That's because you've kept so much among the Delawares, in whose
country there are no lakes. Now, farther north and farther west these
bits of water abound; and you're young, and may yet live to see 'em.
But though there be other lakes, Deerslayer, there's no other Judith
Hutter!”

At this remark his companion smiled, and then he dropped his paddle into
the water, as if in consideration of a lover's haste. Both now pulled
vigorously until they got within a hundred yards of the “castle,” as
Hurry familiarly called the house of Hutter, when they again ceased
paddling; the admirer of Judith restraining his impatience the more
readily, as he perceived that the building was untenanted, at the
moment. This new pause was to enable Deerslayer to survey the singular
edifice, which was of a construction so novel as to merit a particular
description.

Muskrat Castle, as the house had been facetiously named by some waggish
officer, stood in the open lake, at a distance of fully a quarter of a
mile from the nearest shore. On every other side the water extended much
farther, the precise position being distant about two miles from the
northern end of the sheet, and near, if not quite, a mile from its
eastern shore. As there was not the smallest appearance of any island,
but the house stood on piles, with the water flowing beneath it, and
Deerslayer had already discovered that the lake was of a great depth,
he was fain to ask an explanation of this singular circumstance. Hurry
solved the difficulty by telling him that on this spot alone, a long,
narrow shoal, which extended for a few hundred yards in a north and
south direction, rose within six or eight feet of the surface of
the lake, and that Hutter had driven piles into it, and placed his
habitation on them, for the purpose of security.

“The old fellow was burnt out three times, atween the Indians and the
hunters; and in one affray with the red-skins he lost his only son,
since which time he has taken to the water for safety. No one can attack
him here, without coming in a boat, and the plunder and scalps would
scarce be worth the trouble of digging out canoes. Then it's by no
means sartain which would whip in such a scrimmage, for old Tom is well
supplied with arms and ammunition, and the castle, as you may see, is a
tight breastwork ag'in light shot.”

Deerslayer had some theoretical knowledge of frontier warfare, though
he had never yet been called on to raise his hand in anger against a
fellow-creature. He saw that Hurry did not overrate the strength of
this position in a military point of view, since it would not be easy to
attack it without exposing the assailants to the fire of the besieged.
A good deal of art had also been manifested in the disposition of
the timber of which the building was constructed and which afforded a
protection much greater than was usual to the ordinary log-cabins of the
frontier. The sides and ends were composed of the trunks of large pines,
cut about nine feet long, and placed upright, instead of being laid
horizontally, as was the practice of the country. These logs were
squared on three sides, and had large tenons on each end. Massive sills
were secured on the heads of the piles, with suitable grooves dug out
of their upper surfaces, which had been squared for the purpose, and the
lower tenons of the upright pieces were placed in these grooves, giving
them secure fastening below. Plates had been laid on the upper ends
of the upright logs, and were kept in their places by a similar
contrivance; the several corners of the structure being well fastened
by scarfing and pinning the sills and plates. The doors were made of
smaller logs, similarly squared, and the roof was composed of light
poles, firmly united, and well covered with bark.

The effect of this ingenious arrangement was to give its owner a house
that could be approached only by water, the sides of which were composed
of logs closely wedged together, which were two feet thick in their
thinnest parts, and which could be separated only by a deliberate and
laborious use of human hands, or by the slow operation of time. The
outer surface of the building was rude and uneven, the logs being of
unequal sizes; but the squared surfaces within gave both the sides and
door as uniform an appearance as was desired, either for use or show.
The chimney was not the least singular portion of the castle, as Hurry
made his companion observe, while he explained the process by which it
had been made. The material was a stiff clay, properly worked, which had
been put together in a mould of sticks, and suffered to harden, a foot
or two at a time, commencing at the bottom. When the entire chimney had
thus been raised, and had been properly bound in with outward props, a
brisk fire was kindled, and kept going until it was burned to something
like a brick-red. This had not been an easy operation, nor had it
succeeded entirely; but by dint of filling the cracks with fresh clay,
a safe fireplace and chimney had been obtained in the end. This part of
the work stood on the log-door, secured beneath by an extra pile. There
were a few other peculiarities about this dwelling, which will better
appear in the course of the narrative.

“Old Tom is full of contrivances,” added Hurry, “and he set his heart on
the success of his chimney, which threatened more than once to give out
altogether; but perseverance will even overcome smoke; and now he has
a comfortable cabin of it, though it did promise, at one time, to be a
chinky sort of a flue to carry flames and fire.”

“You seem to know the whole history of the castle, Hurry, chimney and
sides,” said Deerslayer, smiling; “is love so overcoming that it causes
a man to study the story of his sweetheart's habitation?”

“Partly that, lad, and partly eyesight,” returned the good-natured
giant, laughing; “there was a large gang of us in the lake, the summer
the old fellow built, and we helped him along with the job. I raised no
small part of the weight of them uprights with my own shoulders, and
the axes flew, I can inform you, Master Natty, while we were bee-ing it
among the trees ashore. The old devil is no way stingy about food, and
as we had often eat at his hearth, we thought we would just house him
comfortably, afore we went to Albany with our skins. Yes, many is the
meal I've swallowed in Tom Hutter's cabins; and Hetty, though so weak in
the way of wits, has a wonderful particular way about a frying-pan or a
gridiron!

“While the parties were thus discoursing, the canoe had been gradually
drawing nearer to the “castle,” and was now so close as to require but
a single stroke of a paddle to reach the landing. This was at a floored
platform in front of the entrance, that might have been some twenty feet
square.

“Old Tom calls this sort of a wharf his door-yard,” observed Hurry, as
he fastened the canoe, after he and his Companion had left it: “and the
gallants from the forts have named it the castle court though what a
'court' can have to do here is more than I can tell you, seeing that
there is no law. 'Tis as I supposed; not a soul within, but the whole
family is off on a v'y'ge of discovery!”

While Hurry was bustling about the “door-yard,” examining the
fishing-spears, rods, nets, and other similar appliances of a frontier
cabin, Deerslayer, whose manner was altogether more rebuked and quiet,
entered the building with a curiosity that was not usually exhibited by
one so long trained in Indian habits. The interior of the “castle” was
as faultlessly neat as its exterior was novel. The entire space, some
twenty feet by forty, was subdivided into several small sleeping-rooms;
the apartment into which he first entered, serving equally for the
ordinary uses of its inmates, and for a kitchen. The furniture was of
the strange mixture that it is not uncommon to find in the remotely
situated log-tenements of the interior. Most of it was rude, and to the
last degree rustic; but there was a clock, with a handsome case of dark
wood, in a corner, and two or three chairs, with a table and bureau,
that had evidently come from some dwelling of more than usual
pretension. The clock was industriously ticking, but its leaden-looking
hands did no discredit to their dull aspect, for they pointed to the
hour of eleven, though the sun plainly showed it was some time past
the turn of the day. There was also a dark, massive chest. The kitchen
utensils were of the simplest kind, and far from numerous, but every
article was in its place, and showed the nicest care in its condition.

After Deerslayer had cast a look about him in the outer room, he raised
a wooden latch, and entered a narrow passage that divided the inner
end of the house into two equal parts. Frontier usages being no way
scrupulous, and his curiosity being strongly excited, the young man now
opened a door, and found himself in a bedroom. A single glance sufficed
to show that the apartment belonged to females. The bed was of the
feathers of wild geese, and filled nearly to overflowing; but it lay in
a rude bunk, raised only a foot from the door. On one side of it were
arranged, on pegs, various dresses, of a quality much superior to what
one would expect to meet in such a place, with ribbons and other similar
articles to correspond. Pretty shoes, with handsome silver buckles, such
as were then worn by females in easy circumstances, were not wanting;
and no less than six fans, of gay colors, were placed half open, in a
way to catch the eye by their conceits and hues. Even the pillow, on
this side of the bed, was covered with finer linen than its companion,
and it was ornamented with a small ruffle. A cap, coquettishly decorated
with ribbons, hung above it, and a pair of long gloves, such as were
rarely used in those days by persons of the laboring classes, were
pinned ostentatiously to it, as if with an intention to exhibit them
there, if they could not be shown on the owner's arms.

All this Deerslayer saw, and noted with a degree of minuteness that
would have done credit to the habitual observation of his friends, the
Delawares. Nor did he fail to perceive the distinction that existed
between the appearances on the different sides of the bed, the head
of which stood against the wall. On that opposite to the one just
described, everything was homely and uninviting, except through its
perfect neatness. The few garments that were hanging from the pegs were
of the coarsest materials and of the commonest forms, while nothing
seemed made for show. Of ribbons there was not one; nor was there either
cap or kerchief beyond those which Hutter's daughters might be fairly
entitled to wear.

It was now several years since Deerslayer had been in a spot especially
devoted to the uses of females of his own color and race. The sight
brought back to his mind a rush of childish recollections; and he
lingered in the room with a tenderness of feeling to which he had long
been a stranger. He bethought him of his mother, whose homely vestments
he remembered to have seen hanging on pegs like those which he felt
must belong to Hetty Hutter; and he bethought himself of a sister, whose
incipient and native taste for finery had exhibited itself somewhat in
the manner of that of Judith, though necessarily in a less degree. These
little resemblances opened a long hidden vein of sensations; and as he
quitted the room, it was with a saddened mien. He looked no further, but
returned slowly and thoughtfully towards the “door-yard.”

“If Old Tom has taken to a new calling, and has been trying his hand at
the traps,” cried Hurry, who had been coolly examining the borderer's
implements; “if that is his humor, and you're disposed to remain in
these parts, we can make an oncommon comfortable season of it; for,
while the old man and I out-knowledge the beaver, you can fish, and
knock down the deer, to keep body and soul together. I've always give
the poorest hunters half a share, but one as actyve and sartain as
yourself might expect a full one.”

“Thank'ee, Hurry; thank'ee, with all my heart--but I do a little
beavering for myself as occasions offer. 'Tis true, the Delawares call
me Deerslayer, but it's not so much because I'm pretty fatal with the
venison as because that while I kill so many bucks and does, I've never
yet taken the life of a fellow-creatur'. They say their traditions do
not tell of another who had shed so much blood of animals that had not
shed the blood of man.”

“I hope they don't account you chicken-hearted, lad! A faint-hearted man
is like a no-tailed beaver.”

“I don't believe, Hurry, that they account me as out-of-the-way
timorsome, even though they may not account me as out-of-the-way brave.
But I'm not quarrelsome; and that goes a great way towards keeping blood
off the hands, among the hunters and red-skins; and then, Harry March,
it keeps blood off the conscience, too.”

“Well, for my part I account game, a red-skin, and a Frenchman as pretty
much the same thing; though I'm as onquarrelsome a man, too, as there is
in all the colonies. I despise a quarreller as I do a cur-dog; but one
has no need to be over-scrupulsome when it's the right time to show the
flint.”

“I look upon him as the most of a man who acts nearest the right, Hurry.
But this is a glorious spot, and my eyes never a-weary looking at it!”

“'Tis your first acquaintance with a lake; and these ideas come over us
all at such times. Lakes have a gentle character, as I say, being pretty
much water and land, and points and bays.”

As this definition by no means met the feelings that were uppermost in
the mind of the young hunter, he made no immediate answer, but stood
gazing at the dark hills and the glassy water in silent enjoyment.

“Have the Governor's or the King's people given this lake a name?” he
suddenly asked, as if struck with a new idea. “If they've not begun to
blaze their trees, and set up their compasses, and line off their maps,
it's likely they've not bethought them to disturb natur' with a name.”

“They've not got to that, yet; and the last time I went in with skins,
one of the King's surveyors was questioning me consarning all the region
hereabouts. He had heard that there was a lake in this quarter, and
had got some general notions about it, such as that there was water and
hills; but how much of either, he know'd no more than you know of the
Mohawk tongue. I didn't open the trap any wider than was necessary,
giving him but poor encouragement in the way of farms and clearings. In
short, I left on his mind some such opinion of this country, as a man
gets of a spring of dirty water, with a path to it that is so muddy that
one mires afore he sets out. He told me they hadn't got the spot down
yet on their maps, though I conclude that is a mistake, for he showed me
his parchment, and there is a lake down on it, where there is no lake
in fact, and which is about fifty miles from the place where it ought to
be, if they meant it for this. I don't think my account will encourage
him to mark down another, by way of improvement.”

Here Hurry laughed heartily, such tricks being particularly grateful to
a set of men who dreaded the approaches of civilization as a curtailment
of their own lawless empire. The egregious errors that existed in the
maps of the day, all of which were made in Europe, were, moreover, a
standing topic of ridicule among them; for, if they had not science
enough to make any better themselves, they had sufficient local
information to detect the gross blunders contained in those that
existed. Any one who will take the trouble to compare these unanswerable
evidences of the topographical skill of our fathers a century since,
with the more accurate sketches of our own time, will at once perceive
that the men of the woods had a sufficient justification for all their
criticism on this branch of the skill of the colonial governments, which
did not at all hesitate to place a river or a lake a degree or two out
of the way, even though they lay within a day's march of the inhabited
parts of the country.

“I'm glad it has no name,” resumed Deerslayer, “or at least, no
pale-face name; for their christenings always foretell waste and
destruction. No doubt, howsoever, the red-skins have their modes of
knowing it, and the hunters and trappers, too; they are likely to call
the place by something reasonable and resembling.”

“As for the tribes, each has its tongue, and its own way of calling
things; and they treat this part of the world just as they treat
all others. Among ourselves, we've got to calling the place the
'Glimmerglass,' seeing that its whole basin is so often hinged with
pines, cast upward to its face as if it would throw back the hills that
hang over it.”

“There is an outlet, I know, for all lakes have outlets, and the rock
at which I am to meet Chingachgook stands near an outlet. Has that no
colony-name yet?”

“In that particular they've got the advantage of us, having one end, and
that the biggest, in their own keeping: they've given it a name which
has found its way up to its source; names nat'rally working up stream.
No doubt, Deerslayer, you've seen the Susquehannah, down in the Delaware
country?”

“That have I, and hunted along its banks a hundred times.”

“That and this are the same in fact, and, I suppose, the same in sound.
I am glad they've been compelled to keep the redmen's name, for it would
be too hard to rob them of both land and name!”

Deerslayer made no answer; but he stood leaning on his rifle, gazing
at the view which so much delighted him. The reader is not to suppose,
however, that it was the picturesque alone which so strongly attracted
his attention. The spot was very lovely, of a truth, and it was then
seen in one of its most favorable moments, the surface of the lake
being as smooth as glass and as limpid as pure air, throwing back
the mountains, clothed in dark pines, along the whole of its eastern
boundary, the points thrusting forward their trees even to nearly
horizontal lines, while the bays were seen glittering through an
occasional arch beneath, left by a vault fretted with branches and
leaves. It was the air of deep repose--the solitudes, that spoke of
scenes and forests untouched by the hands of man--the reign of nature,
in a word, that gave so much pure delight to one of his habits and turn
of mind. Still, he felt, though it was unconsciously, like a poet
also. If he found a pleasure in studying this large, and to him unusual
opening into the mysteries and forms of the woods, as one is gratified
in getting broader views of any subject that has long occupied his
thoughts, he was not insensible to the innate loveliness of such a
landscape neither, but felt a portion of that soothing of the spirit
which is a common attendant of a scene so thoroughly pervaded by the
holy cairn of nature.



Chapter III.

    “Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
    And yet it irks me, the poor dappled foals,--
    Being native burghers of this desert city,--
    Should, in their own confines, with forked heads
    Have their round haunches gored.”

    As You Like It, II.i.21-25

Hurry Harry thought more of the beauties of Judith Hutter than of those
of the Glimmerglass and its accompanying scenery. As soon as he had
taken a sufficiently intimate survey of floating Tom's implements,
therefore, he summoned his companion to the canoe, that they might go
down the lake in quest of the family. Previously to embarking, however,
Hurry carefully examined the whole of the northern end of the water with
an indifferent ship's glass, that formed a part of Hutter's effects. In
this scrutiny, no part of the shore was overlooked; the bays and points
in particular being subjected to a closer inquiry than the rest of the
wooded boundary.

“'Tis as I thought,” said Hurry, laying aside the glass, “the old fellow
is drifting about the south end this fine weather, and has left the
castle to defend itself. Well, now we know that he is not up this-a-way,
'twill be but a small matter to paddle down and hunt him up in his
hiding-place.”

“Does Master Hutter think it necessary to burrow on this lake?” inquired
Deerslayer, as he followed his companion into the canoe; “to my eye it
is such a solitude as one might open his whole soul in, and fear no one
to disarrange his thoughts or his worship.”

“You forget your friends the Mingos, and all the French savages. Is
there a spot on 'arth, Deerslayer, to which them disquiet rogues don't
go? Where is the lake, or even the deer lick, that the blackguards don't
find out, and having found out, don't, sooner or later, discolour its
water with blood.”

“I hear no good character of 'em, sartainly, friend Hurry, though I've
never been called on, yet, to meet them, or any other mortal, on the
warpath. I dare to say that such a lovely spot as this, would not be
likely to be overlooked by such plunderers, for, though I've not been
in the way of quarreling with them tribes myself, the Delawares give
me such an account of 'em that I've pretty much set 'em down in my own
mind, as thorough miscreants.”

“You may do that with a safe conscience, or for that matter, any other
savage you may happen to meet.”

Here Deerslayer protested, and as they went paddling down the lake, a
hot discussion was maintained concerning the respective merits of
the pale-faces and the red-skins. Hurry had all the prejudices and
antipathies of a white hunter, who generally regards the Indian as a
sort of natural competitor, and not unfrequently as a natural enemy.
As a matter of course, he was loud, clamorous, dogmatical and not
very argumentative. Deerslayer, on the other hand, manifested a very
different temper, proving by the moderation of his language, the
fairness of his views, and the simplicity of his distinctions, that he
possessed every disposition to hear reason, a strong, innate desire to
do justice, and an ingenuousness that was singularly indisposed to have
recourse to sophism to maintain an argument; or to defend a prejudice.
Still he was not altogether free from the influence of the latter
feeling. This tyrant of the human mind, which ruses on it prey through
a thousand avenues, almost as soon as men begin to think and feel, and
which seldom relinquishes its iron sway until they cease to do
either, had made some impression on even the just propensities of this
individual, who probably offered in these particulars, a fair specimen
of what absence from bad example, the want of temptation to go wrong,
and native good feeling can render youth.

“You will allow, Deerslayer, that a Mingo is more than half devil,”
 cried Hurry, following up the discussion with an animation that touched
closely on ferocity, “though you want to over-persuade me that the
Delaware tribe is pretty much made up of angels. Now, I gainsay that
proposal, consarning white men, even. All white men are not faultless,
and therefore all Indians can't be faultless. And so your argument is
out at the elbow in the start. But this is what I call reason. Here's
three colors on 'arth: white, black, and red. White is the highest
color, and therefore the best man; black comes next, and is put to live
in the neighborhood of the white man, as tolerable, and fit to be made
use of; and red comes last, which shows that those that made 'em never
expected an Indian to be accounted as more than half human.”

“God made all three alike, Hurry.”

“Alike! Do you call a nigger like a white man, or me like an Indian?”

“You go off at half-cock, and don't hear me out. God made us all, white,
black, and red; and, no doubt, had his own wise intentions in coloring
us differently. Still, he made us, in the main, much the same in
feelin's; though I'll not deny that he gave each race its gifts. A
white man's gifts are Christianized, while a red-skin's are more for the
wilderness. Thus, it would be a great offence for a white man to scalp
the dead; whereas it's a signal vartue in an Indian. Then ag'in, a white
man cannot amboosh women and children in war, while a red-skin may. 'Tis
cruel work, I'll allow; but for them it's lawful work; while for us, it
would be grievous work.”

“That depends on your inimy. As for scalping, or even skinning a savage,
I look upon them pretty much the same as cutting off the ears of wolves
for the bounty, or stripping a bear of its hide. And then you're out
significantly, as to taking the poll of a red-skin in hand, seeing that
the very colony has offered a bounty for the job; all the same as it
pays for wolves' ears and crows' heads.”

“Ay, and a bad business it is, Hurry. Even the Indians themselves cry
shame on it, seeing it's ag'in a white man's gifts. I do not pretend
that all that white men do, is properly Christianized, and according
to the lights given them, for then they would be what they ought to be;
which we know they are not; but I will maintain that tradition, and use,
and color, and laws, make such a difference in races as to amount to
gifts. I do not deny that there are tribes among the Indians that are
nat'rally pervarse and wicked, as there are nations among the whites.
Now, I account the Mingos as belonging to the first, and the Frenchers,
in the Canadas, to the last. In a state of lawful warfare, such as
we have lately got into, it is a duty to keep down all compassionate
feelin's, so far as life goes, ag'in either; but when it comes to
scalps, it's a very different matter.”

“Just hearken to reason, if you please, Deerslayer, and tell me if the
colony can make an onlawful law? Isn't an onlawful law more ag'in natur'
than scalpin' a savage? A law can no more be onlawful, than truth can be
a lie.”

“That sounds reasonable; but it has a most onreasonable bearing, Hurry.
Laws don't all come from the same quarter. God has given us his'n, and
some come from the colony, and others come from the King and Parliament.
When the colony's laws, or even the King's laws, run ag'in the laws of
God, they get to be onlawful, and ought not to be obeyed. I hold to
a white man's respecting white laws, so long as they do not cross the
track of a law comin' from a higher authority; and for a red man to obey
his own red-skin usages, under the same privilege. But, 't is useless
talking, as each man will think fir himself, and have his say agreeable
to his thoughts. Let us keep a good lookout for your friend Floating
Tom, lest we pass him, as he lies hidden under this bushy shore.”

Deerslayer had not named the borders of the lake amiss. Along their
whole length, the smaller trees overhung the water, with their branches
often dipping in the transparent element. The banks were steep, even from
the narrow strand; and, as vegetation invariably struggles towards
the light, the effect was precisely that at which the lover of the
picturesque would have aimed, had the ordering of this glorious setting
of forest been submitted to his control. The points and bays, too, were
sufficiently numerous to render the outline broken and diversified. As
the canoe kept close along the western side of the lake, with a view,
as Hurry had explained to his companion, of reconnoitering for enemies,
before he trusted himself too openly in sight, the expectations of the
two adventurers were kept constantly on the stretch, as neither could
foretell what the next turning of a point might reveal. Their progress
was swift, the gigantic strength of Hurry enabling him to play with the
light bark as if it had been a feather, while the skill of his companion
almost equalized their usefulness, notwithstanding the disparity in
natural means.

Each time the canoe passed a point, Hurry turned a look behind him,
expecting to see the “ark” anchored, or beached in the bay. He was
fated to be disappointed, however; and they had got within a mile of the
southern end of the lake, or a distance of quite two leagues from the
“castle,” which was now hidden from view by half a dozen intervening
projections of the land, when he suddenly ceased paddling, as if
uncertain in what direction next to steer.

“It is possible that the old chap has dropped into the river,” said
Hurry, after looking carefully along the whole of the eastern shore,
which was about a mile distant, and open to his scrutiny for more than
half its length; “for he has taken to trapping considerable, of late,
and, barring flood-wood, he might drop down it a mile or so; though he
would have a most scratching time in getting back again!”

“Where is this outlet?” asked Deerslayer; “I see no opening in the
banks or the trees, that looks as if it would let a river like the
Susquehannah run through it.”

“Ay, Deerslayer, rivers are like human mortals; having small beginnings,
and ending with broad shoulders and wide mouths. You don't see the
outlet, because it passes atween high, steep banks; and the pines, and
hemlocks and bass-woods hang over it, as a roof hangs over a house. If
old Tom is not in the 'Rat's Cove,' he must have burrowed in the river;
we'll look for him first in the cove, and then we'll cross to the
outlet.”

As they proceeded, Hurry explained that there was a shallow bay, formed
by a long, low point, that had got the name of the “Rat's Cove,” from
the circumstance of its being a favorite haunt of the muskrat; and which
offered so complete a cover for the “ark,” that its owner was fond of
lying in it, whenever he found it convenient.

“As a man never knows who may be his visitors, in this part of the
country,” continued Hurry, “it's a great advantage to get a good look
at 'em afore they come too near. Now it's war, such caution is more than
commonly useful, since a Canada man or a Mingo might get into his hut
afore he invited 'em. But Hutter is a first-rate look-outer, and can
pretty much scent danger, as a hound scents the deer.”

“I should think the castle so open, that it would be sartain to draw
inimies, if any happened to find the lake; a thing onlikely enough, I
will allow, as it's off the trail of the forts and settlements.”

“Why, Deerslayer, I've got to believe that a man meets with inimies
easier than he meets with fri'nds. It's skearful to think for how many
causes one gets to be your inimy, and for how few your fri'nd. Some take
up the hatchet because you don't think just as they think; other some
because you run ahead of 'em in the same idees; and I once know'd a
vagabond that quarrelled with a fri'nd because he didn't think him
handsome. Now, you're no monument in the way of beauty, yourself,
Deerslayer, and yet you wouldn't be so onreasonable as to become my
inimy for just saying so.”

“I'm as the Lord made me; and I wish to be accounted no better, nor any
worse. Good looks I may not have; that is to say, to a degree that the
light-minded and vain crave; but I hope I'm not altogether without some
ricommend in the way of good conduct. There's few nobler looking men to
be seen than yourself, Hurry; and I know that I am not to expect any to
turn their eyes on me, when such a one as you can be gazed on; but I
do not know that a hunter is less expart with the rifle, or less to be
relied on for food, because he doesn't wish to stop at every shining
spring he may meet, to study his own countenance in the water.”

Here Hurry burst into a fit of loud laughter; for while he was too
reckless to care much about his own manifest physical superiority, he
was well aware of it, and, like most men who derive an advantage from
the accidents of birth or nature, he was apt to think complacently on
the subject, whenever it happened to cross his mind.

“No, no, Deerslayer, you're no beauty, as you will own yourself, if
you'll look over the side of the canoe,” he cried; “Jude will say that
to your face, if you start her, for a tarter tongue isn't to be found in
any gal's head, in or out of the settlements, if you provoke her to use
it. My advice to you is, never to aggravate Judith; though you may tell
anything to Hetty, and she'll take it as meek as a lamb. No, Jude will
be just as like as not to tell you her opinion consarning your looks.”

“And if she does, Hurry, she will tell me no more than you have said
already.”

“You're not thick'ning up about a small remark, I hope, Deerslayer,
when no harm is meant. You are not a beauty, as you must know, and
why shouldn't fri'nds tell each other these little trifles? If you was
handsome, or ever like to be, I'd be one of the first to tell you of it;
and that ought to content you. Now, if Jude was to tell me that I'm as
ugly as a sinner, I'd take it as a sort of obligation, and try not to
believe her.”

“It's easy for them that natur' has favored, to jest about such matters,
Hurry, though it is sometimes hard for others. I'll not deny but I've
had my cravings towards good looks; yes, I have; but then I've always
been able to get them down by considering how many I've known with fair
outsides, who have had nothing to boast of inwardly. I'll not deny,
Hurry, that I often wish I'd been created more comely to the eye, and
more like such a one as yourself in them particulars; but then I get the
feelin' under by remembering how much better off I am, in a great many
respects, than some fellow-mortals. I might have been born lame, and
onfit even for a squirrel-hunt, or blind, which would have made me a
burden on myself as well as on my fri'nds; or without hearing, which
would have totally onqualified me for ever campaigning or scouting;
which I look forward to as part of a man's duty in troublesome times.
Yes, yes; it's not pleasant, I will allow, to see them that's more
comely, and more sought a'ter, and honored than yourself; but it may
all be borne, if a man looks the evil in the face, and don't mistake his
gifts and his obligations.”

Hurry, in the main, was a good-hearted as well as good-natured fellow;
and the self-abasement of his companion completely got the better of
the passing feeling of personal vanity. He regretted the allusion he
had made to the other's appearance, and endeavored to express as much,
though it was done in the uncouth manner that belonged to the habits and
opinions of the frontier.

“I meant no harm, Deerslayer,” he answered, in a deprecating manner,
“and hope you'll forget what I've said. If you're not downright
handsome, you've a sartain look that says, plainer than any words, that
all's right within. Then you set no value by looks, and will the sooner
forgive any little slight to your appearance. I will not say that Jude
will greatly admire you, for that might raise hopes that would only
breed disapp'intment; but there's Hetty, now, would be just as likely
to find satisfaction in looking at you, as in looking at any other man.
Then you're altogether too grave and considerate-like, to care much
about Judith; for, though the gal is oncommon, she is so general in her
admiration, that a man need not be exalted because she happens to smile.
I sometimes think the hussy loves herself better than she does anything
else breathin'.”

“If she did, Hurry, she'd do no more, I'm afeard, than most queens on
their thrones, and ladies in the towns,” answered Deerslayer, smiling,
and turning back towards his companion with every trace of feeling
banished from his honest-looking and frank countenance. “I never yet
know'd even a Delaware of whom you might not say that much. But here is
the end of the long p'int you mentioned, and the 'Rat's Cove' can't be
far off.”

This point, instead of thrusting itself forward, like all the others,
ran in a line with the main shore of the lake, which here swept within
it, in a deep and retired bay, circling round south again, at the
distance of a quarter of a mile, and crossed the valley, forming the
southern termination of the water. In this bay Hurry felt almost certain
of finding the ark, since, anchored behind the trees that covered the
narrow strip of the point, it might have lain concealed from prying eyes
an entire summer. So complete, indeed, was the cover, in this spot, that
a boat hauled close to the beach, within the point, and near the bottom
of the bay, could by any possibility be seen from only one direction;
and that was from a densely wooded shore within the sweep of the water,
where strangers would be little apt to go.

“We shall soon see the ark,” said Hurry, as the canoe glided round
the extremity of the point, where the water was so deep as actually to
appear black; “he loves to burrow up among the rushes, and we shall be
in his nest in five minutes, although the old fellow may be off among
the traps himself.”

March proved a false prophet. The canoe completely doubled the point, so
as to enable the two travellers to command a view of the whole cove or
bay, for it was more properly the last, and no object, but those that
nature had placed there, became visible. The placid water swept round
in a graceful curve, the rushes bent gently towards its surface, and
the trees overhung it as usual; but all lay in the soothing and sublime
solitude of a wilderness. The scene was such as a poet or an artist
would have delighted in, but it had no charm for Hurry Harry, who was
burning with impatience to get a sight of his light-minded beauty.

The motion of the canoe had been attended with little or no noise, the
frontiermen habitually getting accustomed to caution in most of their
movements, and it now lay on the glassy water appearing to float in air,
partaking of the breathing stillness that seemed to pervade the entire
scene. At this instant a dry stick was heard cracking on the narrow
strip of land that concealed the bay from the open lake. Both the
adventurers started, and each extended a hand towards his rifle, the
weapon never being out of reach of the arm.

“'Twas too heavy for any light creatur',” whispered Hurry, “and it
sounded like the tread of a man!”

“Not so--not so,” returned Deerslayer; “'t was, as you say, too heavy
for one, but it was too light for the other. Put your paddle in the
water, and send the canoe in, to that log; I'll land and cut off the
creatur's retreat up the p'int, be it a Mingo, or be it a muskrat.”

As Hurry complied, Deerslayer was soon on the shore, advancing into the
thicket with a moccasined foot, and a caution that prevented the least
noise. In a minute he was in the centre of the narrow strip of land,
and moving slowly down towards its end, the bushes rendering extreme
watchfulness necessary. Just as he reached the centre of the thicket
the dried twigs cracked again, and the noise was repeated at short
intervals, as if some creature having life walked slowly towards the
point. Hurry heard these sounds also, and pushing the canoe off into
the bay, he seized his rifle to watch the result. A breathless minute
succeeded, after which a noble buck walked out of the thicket, proceeded
with a stately step to the sandy extremity of the point, and began to
slake his thirst from the water of the lake. Hurry hesitated an instant;
then raising his rifle hastily to his shoulder, he took sight and fired.
The effect of this sudden interruption of the solemn stillness of such
a scene was not its least striking peculiarity. The report of the weapon
had the usual sharp, short sound of the rifle: but when a few moments
of silence had succeeded the sudden crack, during which the noise was
floating in air across the water, it reached the rocks of the opposite
mountain, where the vibrations accumulated, and were rolled from cavity
to cavity for miles along the hills, seeming to awaken the sleeping
thunders of the woods. The buck merely shook his head at the report of
the rifle and the whistling of the bullet, for never before had he come
in contact with man; but the echoes of the hills awakened his distrust,
and leaping forward, with his four legs drawn under his body, he fell
at once into deep water, and began to swim towards the foot of the lake.
Hurry shouted and dashed forward in chase, and for one or two minutes
the water foamed around the pursuer and the pursued. The former was
dashing past the point, when Deerslayer appeared on the sand and signed
to him to return.

“'Twas inconsiderate to pull a trigger, afore we had reconn'itred the
shore, and made sartain that no inimies harbored near it,” said the
latter, as his companion slowly and reluctantly complied. “This much I
have l'arned from the Delawares, in the way of schooling and traditions,
even though I've never yet been on a war-path. And, moreover, venison
can hardly be called in season now, and we do not want for food. They
call me Deerslayer, I'll own, and perhaps I desarve the name, in the way
of understanding the creatur's habits, as well as for some sartainty in
the aim, but they can't accuse me of killing an animal when there is no
occasion for the meat, or the skin. I may be a slayer, it's true, but
I'm no slaughterer.”

“'Twas an awful mistake to miss that buck!” exclaimed Hurry, doffing his
cap and running his fingers through his handsome but matted curls, as
if he would loosen his tangled ideas by the process. “I've not done so
onhandy a thing since I was fifteen.”

“Never lament it, as the creatur's death could have done neither of us
any good, and might have done us harm. Them echoes are more awful in my
ears, than your mistake, Hurry, for they sound like the voice of natur'
calling out ag'in a wasteful and onthinking action.”

“You'll hear plenty of such calls, if you tarry long in this quarter of
the world, lad,” returned the other laughing. “The echoes repeat pretty
much all that is said or done on the Glimmerglass, in this calm summer
weather. If a paddle falls you hear of it sometimes, ag'in and ag'in,
as if the hills were mocking your clumsiness, and a laugh, or a whistle,
comes out of them pines, when they're in the humour to speak, in a way
to make you believe they can r'ally convarse.”

“So much the more reason for being prudent and silent. I do not think
the inimy can have found their way into these hills yet, for I don't
know what they are to gain by it, but all the Delawares tell me that, as
courage is a warrior's first vartue, so is prudence his second. One such
call from the mountains, is enough to let a whole tribe into the secret
of our arrival.”

“If it does no other good, it will warn old Tom to put the pot over, and
let him know visiters are at hand. Come, lad; get into the canoe, and we
will hunt the ark up, while there is yet day.”

Deerslayer complied, and the canoe left the spot. Its head was turned
diagonally across the lake, pointing towards the south-eastern curvature
of the sheet. In that direction, the distance to the shore, or to the
termination of the lake, on the course the two were now steering, was
not quite a mile, and, their progress being always swift, it was fast
lessening under the skilful, but easy sweeps of the paddles. When about
half way across, a slight noise drew the eyes of the men towards the
nearest land, and they saw that the buck was just emerging from the lake
and wading towards the beach. In a minute, the noble animal shook the
water from his flanks, gazed up ward at the covering of trees, and,
bounding against the bank, plunged into the forest.

“That creatur' goes off with gratitude in his heart,” said Deerslayer,
“for natur' tells him he has escaped a great danger. You ought to have
some of the same feelin's, Hurry, to think your eye wasn't true, or
that your hand was onsteady, when no good could come of a shot that was
intended onmeaningly rather than in reason.”

“I deny the eye and the hand,” cried March with some heat. “You've got
a little character, down among the Delawares, there, for quickness and
sartainty, at a deer, but I should like to see you behind one of them
pines, and a full painted Mingo behind another, each with a cock'd rifle
and a striving for the chance! Them's the situations, Nathaniel, to try
the sight and the hand, for they begin with trying the narves. I never
look upon killing a creatur' as an explite; but killing a savage is. The
time will come to try your hand, now we've got to blows ag'in, and we
shall soon know what a ven'son reputation can do in the field. I deny
that either hand or eye was onsteady; it was all a miscalculation of the
buck, which stood still when he ought to have kept in motion, and so I
shot ahead of him.”

“Have it your own way, Hurry; all I contend for is, that it's lucky.
I dare say I shall not pull upon a human mortal as steadily or with as
light a heart, as I pull upon a deer.”

“Who's talking of mortals, or of human beings at all, Deerslayer? I put
the matter to you on the supposition of an Injin. I dare say any man
would have his feelin's when it got to be life or death, ag'in another
human mortal; but there would be no such scruples in regard to an Injin;
nothing but the chance of his hitting you, or the chance of your hitting
him.”

“I look upon the redmen to be quite as human as we are ourselves, Hurry.
They have their gifts, and their religion, it's true; but that makes no
difference in the end, when each will be judged according to his deeds,
and not according to his skin.”

“That's downright missionary, and will find little favor up in this part
of the country, where the Moravians don't congregate. Now, skin makes
the man. This is reason; else how are people to judge of each other.
The skin is put on, over all, in order when a creatur', or a mortal, is
fairly seen, you may know at once what to make of him. You know a bear
from a hog, by his skin, and a gray squirrel from a black.”

“True, Hurry,” said the other looking back and smiling, “nevertheless,
they are both squirrels.”

“Who denies it? But you'll not say that a red man and a white man are
both Injins?”

“But I do say they are both men. Men of different races and colors, and
having different gifts and traditions, but, in the main, with the same
natur'. Both have souls; and both will be held accountable for their
deeds in this life.”

Hurry was one of those theorists who believed in the inferiority of all
the human race who were not white. His notions on the subject were
not very clear, nor were his definitions at all well settled; but his
opinions were none the less dogmatical or fierce. His conscience accused
him of sundry lawless acts against the Indians, and he had found it an
exceedingly easy mode of quieting it, by putting the whole family of
redmen, incontinently, without the category of human rights. Nothing
angered him sooner than to deny his proposition, more especially if the
denial were accompanied by a show of plausible argument; and he did not
listen to his companion's remarks with much composure of either manner
or feeling.

“You're a boy, Deerslayer, misled and misconsaited by Delaware arts, and
missionary ignorance,” he exclaimed, with his usual indifference to the
forms of speech, when excited. “You may account yourself as a red-skin's
brother, but I hold'em all to be animals; with nothing human about 'em
but cunning. That they have, I'll allow; but so has a fox, or even a
bear. I'm older than you, and have lived longer in the woods--or, for
that matter, have lived always there, and am not to be told what an
Injin is or what he is not. If you wish to be considered a savage,
you've only to say so, and I'll name you as such to Judith and the old
man, and then we'll see how you'll like your welcome.”

Here Hurry's imagination did his temper some service, since, by
conjuring up the reception his semi-aquatic acquaintance would be
likely to bestow on one thus introduced, he burst into a hearty fit
of laughter. Deerslayer too well knew the uselessness of attempting
to convince such a being of anything against his prejudices, to feel a
desire to undertake the task; and he was not sorry that the approach of
the canoe to the southeastern curve of the lake gave a new direction to
his ideas. They were now, indeed, quite near the place that March had
pointed out for the position of the outlet, and both began to look for
it with a curiosity that was increased by the expectation of the ark.

It may strike the reader as a little singular, that the place where a
stream of any size passed through banks that had an elevation of some
twenty feet, should be a matter of doubt with men who could not now have
been more than two hundred yards distant from the precise spot. It will
be recollected, however, that the trees and bushes here, as elsewhere,
fairly overhung the water, making such a fringe to the lake, as to
conceal any little variations from its general outline.

“I've not been down at this end of the lake these two summers,” said
Hurry, standing up in the canoe, the better to look about him. “Ay,
there's the rock, showing its chin above the water, and I know that the
river begins in its neighborhood.”

The men now plied the paddles again, and they were presently within a
few yards of the rock, floating towards it, though their efforts were
suspended. This rock was not large, being merely some five or six feet
high, only half of which elevation rose above the lake. The incessant
washing of the water for centuries had so rounded its summit, that it
resembled a large beehive in shape, its form being more than usually
regular and even. Hurry remarked, as they floated slowly past, that this
rock was well known to all the Indians in that part of the country, and
that they were in the practice of using it as a mark to designate the
place of meeting, when separated by their hunts and marches.

“And here is the river, Deerslayer,” he continued, “though so shut in
by trees and bushes as to look more like an and-bush, than the outlet of
such a sheet as the Glimmerglass.”

Hurry had not badly described the place, which did truly seem to be a
stream lying in ambush. The high banks might have been a hundred feet
asunder; but, on the western side, a small bit of low land extended so
far forward as to diminish the breadth of the stream to half that width.

As the bushes hung in the water beneath, and pines that had the stature
of church-steeples rose in tall columns above, all inclining towards the
light, until their branches intermingled, the eye, at a little distance,
could not easily detect any opening in the shore, to mark the egress of
the water. In the forest above, no traces of this outlet were to be seen
from the lake, the whole presenting the same connected and seemingly
interminable carpet of leaves. As the canoe slowly advanced, sucked in
by the current, it entered beneath an arch of trees, through which the
light from the heavens struggled by casual openings, faintly relieving
the gloom beneath.

“This is a nat'ral and-bush,” half whispered Hurry, as if he felt that
the place was devoted to secrecy and watchfulness; “depend on it, old
Tom has burrowed with the ark somewhere in this quarter. We will drop
down with the current a short distance, and ferret him out.”

“This seems no place for a vessel of any size,” returned the other; “it
appears to me that we shall have hardly room enough for the canoe.”

Hurry laughed at the suggestion, and, as it soon appeared, with reason;
for the fringe of bushes immediately on the shore of the lake was no
sooner passed, than the adventurers found themselves in a narrow stream,
of a sufficient depth of limpid water, with a strong current, and a
canopy of leaves upheld by arches composed of the limbs of hoary trees.
Bushes lined the shores, as usual, but they left sufficient space
between them to admit the passage of anything that did not exceed twenty
feet in width, and to allow of a perspective ahead of eight or ten times
that distance.

Neither of our two adventurers used his paddle, except to keep the light
bark in the centre of the current, but both watched each turning of the
stream, of which there were two or three within the first hundred yards,
with jealous vigilance. Turn after turn, however, was passed, and the
canoe had dropped down with the current some little distance, when Hurry
caught a bush, and arrested its movement so suddenly and silently as to
denote some unusual motive for the act. Deerslayer laid his hand on the
stock of his rifle as soon as he noted this proceeding, but it was quite
as much with a hunter's habit as from any feeling of alarm.

“There the old fellow is!” whispered Hurry, pointing with a finger, and
laughing heartily, though he carefully avoided making a noise, “ratting
it away, just as I supposed; up to his knees in the mud and water,
looking to the traps and the bait. But for the life of me I can see
nothing of the ark; though I'll bet every skin I take this season, Jude
isn't trusting her pretty little feet in the neighborhood of that black
mud. The gal's more likely to be braiding her hair by the side of some
spring, where she can see her own good looks, and collect scornful
feelings ag'in us men.”

“You over-judge young women--yes, you do, Hurry--who as often bethink
them of their failings as they do of their perfections. I dare to say
this Judith, now, is no such admirer of herself, and no such scorner
of our sex as you seem to think; and that she is quite as likely to be
sarving her father in the house, wherever that may be, as he is to be
sarving her among the traps.”

“It's a pleasure to hear truth from a man's tongue, if it be only once
in a girl's life,” cried a pleasant, rich, and yet soft female voice, so
near the canoe as to make both the listeners start. “As for you, Master
Hurry, fair words are so apt to choke you, that I no longer expect to
hear them from your mouth; the last you uttered sticking in your throat,
and coming near to death. But I'm glad to see you keep better society
than formerly, and that they who know how to esteem and treat women are
not ashamed to journey in your company.”

As this was said, a singularly handsome and youthful female face was
thrust through an opening in the leaves, within reach of Deerslayer's
paddle. Its owner smiled graciously on the young man; and the frown
that she cast on Hurry, though simulated and pettish, had the effect to
render her beauty more striking, by exhibiting the play of an expressive
but capricious countenance; one that seemed to change from the soft
to the severe, the mirthful to the reproving, with facility and
indifference.

A second look explained the nature of the surprise. Unwittingly, the men
had dropped alongside of the ark, which had been purposely concealed in
bushes cut and arranged for the purpose; and Judith Hutter had merely
pushed aside the leaves that lay before a window, in order to show her
face, and speak to them.



Chapter IV.


    “And that timid fawn starts not with fear,
    When I steal to her secret bower;
    And that young May violet to me is dear,
    And I visit the silent streamlet near,
    To look on the lovely flower.”

    Bryant, “An Indian Story,” ii.11-15

The ark, as the floating habitation of the Hutters was generally called,
was a very simple contrivance. A large flat, or scow, composed the
buoyant part of the vessel; and in its centre, occupying the whole of
its breadth, and about two thirds of its length, stood a low fabric,
resembling the castle in construction, though made of materials so light
as barely to be bullet-proof. As the sides of the scow were a little
higher than usual, and the interior of the cabin had no more elevation
than was necessary for comfort, this unusual addition had neither a very
clumsy nor a very obtrusive appearance. It was, in short, little more
than a modern canal-boat, though more rudely constructed, of greater
breadth than common, and bearing about it the signs of the wilderness,
in its bark-covered posts and roof. The scow, however, had been put
together with some skill, being comparatively light, for its strength,
and sufficiently manageable. The cabin was divided into two apartments,
one of which served for a parlor, and the sleeping-room of the father,
and the other was appropriated to the uses of the daughters. A very
simple arrangement sufficed for the kitchen, which was in one end of
the scow, and removed from the cabin, standing in the open air; the ark
being altogether a summer habitation.

The “and-bush,” as Hurry in his ignorance of English termed it, is quite
as easily explained. In many parts of the lake and river, where the
banks were steep and high, the smaller trees and larger bushes, as has
been already mentioned, fairly overhung the stream, their branches not
unfrequently dipping into the water. In some instances they grew out
in nearly horizontal lines, for thirty or forty feet. The water being
uniformly deepest near the shores, where the banks were highest and the
nearest to a perpendicular, Hutter had found no difficulty in letting
the ark drop under one of these covers, where it had been anchored
with a view to conceal its position; security requiring some such
precautions, in his view of the case. Once beneath the trees and bushes,
a few stones fastened to the ends of the branches had caused them to
bend sufficiently to dip into the river; and a few severed bushes,
properly disposed, did the rest. The reader has seen that this cover was
so complete as to deceive two men accustomed to the woods, and who were
actually in search of those it concealed; a circumstance that will be
easily understood by those who are familiar with the matted and wild
luxuriance of a virgin American forest, more especially in a rich soil.
The discovery of the ark produced very different effects on our two
adventurers.

As soon as the canoe could be got round to the proper opening, Hurry
leaped on board, and in a minute was closely engaged in a gay, and a
sort of recriminating discourse with Judith, apparently forgetful of
the existence of all the rest of the world. Not so with Deerslayer. He
entered the ark with a slow, cautious step, examining every arrangement
of the cover with curious and scrutinizing eyes. It is true, he cast
one admiring glance at Judith, which was extorted by her brilliant and
singular beauty; but even this could detain him but a single instant
from the indulgence of his interest in Hutter's contrivances. Step
by step did he look into the construction of the singular abode,
investigate its fastenings and strength, ascertain its means of defence,
and make every inquiry that would be likely to occur to one whose
thoughts dwelt principally on such expedients. Nor was the cover
neglected. Of this he examined the whole minutely, his commendation
escaping him more than once in audible comments. Frontier usages
admitting of this familiarity, he passed through the rooms, as he had
previously done at the 'Castle', and opening a door issued into the end
of the scow opposite to that where he had left Hurry and Judith. Here
he found the other sister, employed at some coarse needle-work, seated
beneath the leafy canopy of the cover.

As Deerslayer's examination was by this time ended, he dropped the butt
of his rifle, and, leaning on the barrel with both hands, he turned
towards the girl with an interest the singular beauty of her sister
had not awakened. He had gathered from Hurry's remarks that Hetty was
considered to have less intellect than ordinarily falls to the share of
human beings, and his education among Indians had taught him to treat
those who were thus afflicted by Providence with more than common
tenderness. Nor was there any thing in Hetty Hutter's appearance, as so
often happens, to weaken the interest her situation excited. An idiot
she could not properly be termed, her mind being just enough enfeebled
to lose most of those traits that are connected with the more artful
qualities, and to retain its ingenuousness and love of truth. It had
often been remarked of this girl, by the few who had seen her, and who
possessed sufficient knowledge to discriminate, that her perception
of the right seemed almost intuitive, while her aversion to the wrong
formed so distinctive a feature of her mind, as to surround her with an
atmosphere of pure morality; peculiarities that are not infrequent with
persons who are termed feeble-minded; as if God had forbidden the evil
spirits to invade a precinct so defenceless, with the benign purpose
of extending a direct protection to those who had been left without the
usual aids of humanity. Her person, too, was agreeable, having a strong
resemblance to that of her sister's, of which it was a subdued and
humble copy. If it had none of the brilliancy of Judith's, the calm,
quiet, almost holy expression of her meek countenance seldom failed to
win on the observer, and few noted it long that did not begin to feel a
deep and lasting interest in the girl. She had no colour, in common,
nor was her simple mind apt to present images that caused her cheek to
brighten, though she retained a modesty so innate that it almost raised
her to the unsuspecting purity of a being superior to human infirmities.
Guileless, innocent, and without distrust, equally by nature and from
her mode of life, providence had, nevertheless shielded her from harm,
by a halo of moral light, as it is said 'to temper the wind to the shorn
lamb.'

“You are Hetty Hutter,” said Deerslayer, in the way one puts a question
unconsciously to himself, assuming a kindness of tone and manner that
were singularly adapted to win the confidence of her he addressed.
“Hurry Harry has told me of you, and I know you must be the child?”

“Yes, I'm Hetty Hutter” returned the girl in a low, sweet voice, which
nature, aided by some education, had preserved from vulgarity of tone
and utterance--“I'm Hetty; Judith Hutter's sister; and Thomas Hutter's
youngest daughter.”

“I know your history, then, for Hurry Harry talks considerable, and he
is free of speech when he can find other people's consarns to dwell on.
You pass most of your life on the lake, Hetty.”

“Certainly. Mother is dead; father is gone a-trapping, and Judith and I
stay at home. What's your name?”

“That's a question more easily asked than it is answered, young woman,
seeing that I'm so young, and yet have borne more names than some of the
greatest chiefs in all America.”

“But you've got a name--you don't throw away one name, before you come
honestly by another?”

“I hope not, gal--I hope not. My names have come nat'rally, and I
suppose the one I bear now will be of no great lasting, since the
Delawares seldom settle on a man's ra'al title, until such time as he
has an opportunity of showing his true natur', in the council, or on the
warpath; which has never behappened me; seeing firstly, because I'm not
born a red-skin and have no right to sit in their councillings, and am
much too humble to be called on for opinions from the great of my own
colour; and, secondly, because this is the first war that has befallen
in my time, and no inimy has yet inroaded far enough into the colony, to
be reached by an arm even longer than mine.”

“Tell me your names,” added Hetty, looking up at him artlessly, “and,
maybe, I'll tell you your character.”

“There is some truth in that, I'll not deny, though it often fails. Men
are deceived in other men's characters, and frequently give 'em names
they by no means desarve. You can see the truth of this in the Mingo
names, which, in their own tongue, signify the same things as the
Delaware names,--at least, so they tell me, for I know little of that
tribe, unless it be by report,--and no one can say they are as honest or
as upright a nation. I put no great dependence, therefore, on names.”

“Tell me all your names,” repeated the girl, earnestly, for her mind
was too simple to separate things from professions, and she did attach
importance to a name; “I want to know what to think of you.”

“Well, sartain; I've no objection, and you shall hear them all. In the
first place, then, I'm Christian, and white-born, like yourself, and my
parents had a name that came down from father to son, as is a part of
their gifts. My father was called Bumppo; and I was named after him, of
course, the given name being Nathaniel, or Natty, as most people saw fit
to tarm it.”

“Yes, yes--Natty--and Hetty” interrupted the girl quickly, and
looking up from her work again, with a smile: “you are Natty, and I'm
Hetty--though you are Bumppo, and I'm Hutter. Bumppo isn't as pretty as
Hutter, is it?”

“Why, that's as people fancy. Bumppo has no lofty sound, I admit; and
yet men have bumped through the world with it. I did not go by this
name, howsoever, very long; for the Delawares soon found out, or thought
they found out, that I was not given to lying, and they called me,
firstly, 'Straight-tongue.'”

“That's a good name,” interrupted Hetty, earnestly, and in a positive
manner; “don't tell me there's no virtue in names!”

“I do not say that, for perhaps I desarved to be so called, lies being
no favorites with me, as they are with some. After a while they found
out I was quick of foot, and then they called me 'The Pigeon'; which,
you know, has a swift wing, and flies in a straight line.”

“That was a pretty name!” exclaimed Hetty; “pigeons are pretty birds!”

“Most things that God created are pretty in their way, my good gal,
though they get to be deformed by mankind, so as to change their
natur's, as well as their appearance. From carrying messages, and
striking blind trails, I got at last to following the hunters, when it
was thought I was quicker and surer at finding the game than most lads,
and then they called me the 'Lap-ear'; as, they said, I partook of the
sagacity of the hound.”

“That's not so pretty,” answered Hetty; “I hope you didn't keep that
name long.”

“Not after I was rich enough to buy a rifle,” returned the other,
betraying a little pride through his usually quiet and subdued manner;
“then it was seen I could keep a wigwam in ven'son; and in time I got
the name of 'Deerslayer,' which is that I now bear; homely as some will
think it, who set more value on the scalp of a fellow-mortal than on the
horns of a buck.”

“Well, Deerslayer, I'm not one of them,” answered Hetty, simply; “Judith
likes soldiers, and flary coats, and fine feathers; but they're all
naught to me. She says the officers are great, and gay, and of soft
speech; but they make me shudder, for their business is to kill their
fellow-creatures. I like your calling better; and your last name is a
very good one--better than Natty Bumppo.”

“This is nat'ral in one of your turn of mind, Hetty, and much as I
should have expected. They tell me your sister is handsome--oncommon,
for a mortal; and beauty is apt to seek admiration.”

“Did you never see Judith?” demanded the girl, with quick earnestness;
“if you never have, go at once and look at her. Even Hurry Harry isn't
more pleasant to look at though she is a woman, and he is a man.”

Deerslayer regarded the girl for a moment with concern. Her pale-face
had flushed a little, and her eye, usually so mild and serene,
brightened as she spoke, in the way to betray the inward impulses.

“Ay, Hurry Harry,” he muttered to himself, as he walked through the
cabin towards the other end of the boat; “this comes of good looks, if
a light tongue has had no consarn in it. It's easy to see which way that
poor creatur's feelin's are leanin', whatever may be the case with your
Jude's.”

But an interruption was put to the gallantry of Hurry, the coquetry
of his intros, the thoughts of Deerslayer, and the gentle feelings of
Hetty, by the sudden appearance of the canoe of the ark's owner, in the
narrow opening among the bushes that served as a sort of moat to
his position. It would seem that Hutter, or Floating Tom, as he was
familiarly called by all the hunters who knew his habits, recognized the
canoe of Hurry, for he expressed no surprise at finding him in the
scow. On the contrary, his reception was such as to denote not only
gratification, but a pleasure, mingled with a little disappointment at
his not having made his appearance some days sooner.

“I looked for you last week,” he said, in a half-grumbling,
half-welcoming manner; “and was disappointed uncommonly that you didn't
arrive. There came a runner through, to warn all the trappers and
hunters that the colony and the Canadas were again in trouble; and I
felt lonesome, up in these mountains, with three scalps to see to, and
only one pair of hands to protect them.”

“That's reasonable,” returned March; “and 't was feeling like a parent.
No doubt, if I had two such darters as Judith and Hetty, my exper'ence
would tell the same story, though in gin'ral I am just as well satisfied
with having the nearest neighbor fifty miles off, as when he is within
call.”

“Notwithstanding, you didn't choose to come into the wilderness alone,
now you knew that the Canada savages are likely to be stirring,”
 returned Hutter, giving a sort of distrustful, and at the same time
inquiring glance at Deerslayer.

“Why should I? They say a bad companion, on a journey, helps to shorten
the path; and this young man I account to be a reasonably good one.
This is Deerslayer, old Tom, a noted hunter among the Delawares, and
Christian-born, and Christian-edicated, too, like you and me. The lad is
not parfect, perhaps, but there's worse men in the country that he came
from, and it's likely he'll find some that's no better, in this part
of the world. Should we have occasion to defend our traps, and the
territory, he'll be useful in feeding us all; for he's a reg'lar dealer
in ven'son.”

“Young man, you are welcome,” growled Tom, thrusting a hard, bony hand
towards the youth, as a pledge of his sincerity; “in such times, a white
face is a friend's, and I count on you as a support. Children sometimes
make a stout heart feeble, and these two daughters of mine give me more
concern than all my traps, and skins, and rights in the country.”

“That's nat'ral!” cried Hurry. “Yes, Deerslayer, you and I don't know it
yet by experience; but, on the whole, I consider that as nat'ral. If we
had darters, it's more than probable we should have some such feelin's;
and I honor the man that owns 'em. As for Judith, old man, I enlist, at
once, as her soldier, and here is Deerslayer to help you to take care of
Hetty.”

“Many thanks to you, Master March,” returned the beauty, in a full, rich
voice, and with an accuracy of intonation and utterance that she shared
in common with her sister, and which showed that she had been better
taught than her father's life and appearance would give reason to
expect. “Many thanks to you; but Judith Hutter has the spirit and
the experience that will make her depend more on herself than on
good-looking rovers like you. Should there be need to face the savages,
do you land with my father, instead of burrowing in the huts, under the
show of defending us females and--”

“Girl--girl,” interrupted the father, “quiet that glib tongue of thine,
and hear the truth. There are savages on the lake shore already, and no
man can say how near to us they may be at this very moment, or when we
may hear more from them!”

“If this be true, Master Hutter,” said Hurry, whose change of
countenance denoted how serious he deemed the information, though it did
not denote any unmanly alarm, “if this be true, your ark is in a most
misfortunate position, for, though the cover did deceive Deerslayer and
myself, it would hardly be overlooked by a full-blooded Injin, who was
out seriously in s'arch of scalps!”

“I think as you do, Hurry, and wish, with all my heart, we lay anywhere
else, at this moment, than in this narrow, crooked stream, which has
many advantages to hide in, but which is almost fatal to them that are
discovered. The savages are near us, moreover, and the difficulty is,
to get out of the river without being shot down like deer standing at a
lick!”

“Are you sartain, Master Hutter, that the red-skins you dread are ra'al
Canadas?” asked Deerslayer, in a modest but earnest manner. “Have you
seen any, and can you describe their paint?”

“I have fallen in with the signs of their being in the neighborhood,
but have seen none of 'em. I was down stream a mile or so, looking to my
traps, when I struck a fresh trail, crossing the corner of a swamp, and
moving northward. The man had not passed an hour; and I know'd it for an
Indian footstep, by the size of the foot, and the intoe, even before I
found a worn moccasin, which its owner had dropped as useless. For that
matter, I found the spot where he halted to make a new one, which was
only a few yards from the place where he had dropped the old one.”

“That doesn't look much like a red-skin on the war path!” returned the
other, shaking his head. “An exper'enced warrior, at least, would have
burned, or buried, or sunk in the river such signs of his passage; and
your trail is, quite likely, a peaceable trail. But the moccasin may
greatly relieve my mind, if you bethought you of bringing it off. I've
come here to meet a young chief myself; and his course would be much in
the direction you've mentioned. The trail may have been his'n.”

“Hurry Harry, you're well acquainted with this young man, I hope, who
has meetings with savages in a part of the country where he has
never been before?” demanded Hutter, in a tone and in a manner that
sufficiently indicated the motive of the question; these rude beings
seldom hesitating, on the score of delicacy, to betray their feelings.
“Treachery is an Indian virtue; and the whites, that live much in their
tribes, soon catch their ways and practices.”

“True--true as the Gospel, old Tom; but not personable to Deerslayer,
who's a young man of truth, if he has no other ricommend. I'll answer
for his honesty, whatever I may do for his valor in battle.”

“I should like to know his errand in this strange quarter of the
country.”

“That is soon told, Master Hutter,” said the young man, with the
composure of one who kept a clean conscience. “I think, moreover, you've
a right to ask it. The father of two such darters, who occupies a lake,
after your fashion, has just the same right to inquire into a stranger's
business in his neighborhood, as the colony would have to demand the
reason why the Frenchers put more rijiments than common along the lines.
No, no, I'll not deny your right to know why a stranger comes into your
habitation or country, in times as serious as these.”

“If such is your way of thinking, friend, let me hear your story without
more words.”

“'T is soon told, as I said afore; and shall be honestly told. I'm a
young man, and, as yet, have never been on a war-path; but no sooner did
the news come among the Delawares, that wampum and a hatchet were about
to be sent in to the tribe, than they wished me to go out among the
people of my own color, and get the exact state of things for 'em. This
I did, and, after delivering my talk to the chiefs, on my return, I met
an officer of the crown on the Schoharie, who had messages to send to
some of the fri'ndly tribes that live farther west. This was thought a
good occasion for Chingachgook, a young chief who has never struck a
foe, and myself; to go on our first war path in company, and an
app'intment was made for us, by an old Delaware, to meet at the rock
near the foot of this lake. I'll not deny that Chingachgook has another
object in view, but it has no consarn with any here, and is his secret
and not mine; therefore I'll say no more about it.”

“'Tis something about a young woman,” interrupted Judith hastily, then
laughing at her own impetuosity, and even having the grace to colour a
little, at the manner in which she had betrayed her readiness to impute
such a motive. “If 'tis neither war, nor a hunt, it must be love.”

“Ay, it comes easy for the young and handsome, who hear so much of them
feelin's, to suppose that they lie at the bottom of most proceedin's;
but, on that head, I say nothin'. Chingachgook is to meet me at the
rock, an hour afore sunset to-morrow evening, after which we shall go our
way together, molesting none but the king's inimies, who are lawfully
our own. Knowing Hurry of old, who once trapped in our hunting grounds,
and falling in with him on the Schoharie, just as he was on the p'int of
starting for his summer ha'nts, we agreed to journey in company; not so
much from fear of the Mingos, as from good fellowship, and, as he says,
to shorten a long road.”

“And you think the trail I saw may have been that of your friend, ahead
of his time?” said Hutter.

“That's my idee, which may be wrong, but which may be right. If I saw
the moccasin, howsever, I could tell, in a minute, whether it is made in
the Delaware fashion, or not.”

“Here it is, then,” said the quick-witted Judith, who had already gone
to the canoe in quest of it. “Tell us what it says; friend or enemy. You
look honest, and I believe all you say, whatever father may think.”

“That's the way with you, Jude; forever finding out friends, where I
distrust foes,” grumbled Tom: “but, speak out, young man, and tell us
what you think of the moccasin.”

“That's not Delaware made,” returned Deerslayer, examining the worn and
rejected covering for the foot with a cautious eye. “I'm too young on a
war-path to be positive, but I should say that moccasin has a northern
look, and comes from beyond the Great Lakes.”

“If such is the case, we ought not to lie here a minute longer than is
necessary,” said Hutter, glancing through the leaves of his cover, as if
he already distrusted the presence of an enemy on the opposite shore of
the narrow and sinuous stream. “It wants but an hour or so of night,
and to move in the dark will be impossible, without making a noise that
would betray us. Did you hear the echo of a piece in the mountains,
half-an-hour since?”

“Yes, old man, and heard the piece itself,” answered Hurry, who now felt
the indiscretion of which he had been guilty, “for the last was fired
from my own shoulder.”

“I feared it came from the French Indians; still it may put them on the
look-out, and be a means of discovering us. You did wrong to fire in
war-time, unless there was good occasion.

“So I begin to think myself, Uncle Tom; and yet, if a man can't trust
himself to let off his rifle in a wilderness that is a thousand miles
square, lest some inimy should hear it, where's the use in carrying
one?”

Hutter now held a long consultation with his two guests, in which the
parties came to a true understanding of their situation. He explained
the difficulty that would exist in attempting to get the ark out of
so swift and narrow a stream, in the dark, without making a noise that
could not fail to attract Indian ears. Any strollers in their vicinity
would keep near the river or the lake; but the former had swampy shores
in many places, and was both so crooked and so fringed with bushes, that
it was quite possible to move by daylight without incurring much danger
of being seen. More was to be apprehended, perhaps, from the ear than
from the eye, especially as long as they were in the short, straitened,
and canopied reaches of the stream.

“I never drop down into this cover, which is handy to my traps, and
safer than the lake from curious eyes, without providing the means of
getting out ag'in,” continued this singular being; “and that is easier
done by a pull than a push. My anchor is now lying above the suction, in
the open lake; and here is a line, you see, to haul us up to it. Without
some such help, a single pair of hands would make heavy work in forcing
a scow like this up stream. I have a sort of a crab, too, that lightens
the pull, on occasion. Jude can use the oar astern as well as myself;
and when we fear no enemy, to get out of the river gives us but little
trouble.”

“What should we gain, Master Hutter, by changing the position?” asked
Deerslayer, with a good deal of earnestness; “this is a safe cover, and
a stout defence might be made from the inside of this cabin. I've never
fou't unless in the way of tradition; but it seems to me we might beat
off twenty Mingos, with palisades like them afore us.”

“Ay, ay; you 've never fought except in traditions, that's plain enough,
young man! Did you ever see as broad a sheet of water as this above us,
before you came in upon it with Hurry?”

“I can't say that I ever did,” Deerslayer answered, modestly. “Youth
is the time to l'arn; and I'm far from wishing to raise my voice in
counsel, afore it is justified by exper'ence.”

“Well, then, I'll teach you the disadvantage of fighting in this
position, and the advantage of taking to the open lake. Here, you may
see, the savages will know where to aim every shot; and it would be too
much to hope that some would not find their way through the crevices of
the logs. Now, on the other hand, we should have nothing but a forest
to aim at. Then we are not safe from fire, here, the bark of this roof
being little better than so much kindling-wood. The castle, too, might
be entered and ransacked in my absence, and all my possessions overrun
and destroyed. Once in the lake, we can be attacked only in boats or
on rafts--shall have a fair chance with the enemy--and can protect the
castle with the ark. Do you understand this reasoning, youngster?”

“It sounds well--yes, it has a rational sound; and I'll not gainsay it.”

“Well, old Tom,” cried Hurry, “If we are to move, the sooner we make a
beginning, the sooner we shall know whether we are to have our scalps
for night-caps, or not.”

As this proposition was self-evident, no one denied its justice. The
three men, after a short preliminary explanation, now set about their
preparations to move the ark in earnest. The slight fastenings were
quickly loosened; and, by hauling on the line, the heavy craft slowly
emerged from the cover. It was no sooner free from the incumbrance of
the branches, than it swung into the stream, sheering quite close to the
western shore, by the force of the current. Not a soul on board heard
the rustling of the branches, as the cabin came against the bushes and
trees of the western bank, without a feeling of uneasiness; for no one
knew at what moment, or in what place, a secret and murderous enemy
might unmask himself. Perhaps the gloomy light that still struggled
through the impending canopy of leaves, or found its way through the
narrow, ribbon-like opening, which seemed to mark, in the air above,
the course of the river that flowed beneath, aided in augmenting the
appearance of the danger; for it was little more than sufficient to
render objects visible, without giving up all their outlines at a
glance. Although the sun had not absolutely set, it had withdrawn its
direct rays from the valley; and the hues of evening were beginning to
gather around objects that stood uncovered, rendering those within the
shadows of the woods still more sombre and gloomy.

No interruption followed the movement, however, and, as the men
continued to haul on the line, the ark passed steadily ahead, the great
breadth of the scow preventing its sinking into the water, and from
offering much resistance to the progress of the swift element beneath
its bottom. Hutter, too, had adopted a precaution suggested by
experience, which might have done credit to a seaman, and which
completely prevented any of the annoyances and obstacles which otherwise
would have attended the short turns of the river. As the ark descended,
heavy stones, attached to the line, were dropped in the centre of the
stream, forming local anchors, each of which was kept from dragging
by the assistance of those above it, until the uppermost of all was
reached, which got its “backing” from the anchor, or grapnel, that lay
well out in the lake. In consequence of this expedient, the ark floated
clear of the incumbrances of the shore, against which it would otherwise
have been unavoidably hauled at every turn, producing embarrassments
that Hutter, single-handed, would have found it very difficult to
overcome. Favored by this foresight, and stimulated by the apprehension
of discovery, Floating Tom and his two athletic companions hauled the
ark ahead with quite as much rapidity as comported with the strength
of the line. At every turn in the stream, a stone was raised from the
bottom, when the direction of the scow changed to one that pointed
towards the stone that lay above. In this manner, with the channel
buoyed out for him, as a sailor might term it, did Hutter move forward,
occasionally urging his friends, in a low and guarded voice, to increase
their exertions, and then, as occasions offered, warning them against
efforts that might, at particular moments, endanger all by too much
zeal. In spite of their long familiarity with the woods, the gloomy
character of the shaded river added to the uneasiness that each felt;
and when the ark reached the first bend in the Susquehannah, and the eye
caught a glimpse of the broader expanse of the lake, all felt a relief,
that perhaps none would have been willing to confess. Here the last
stone was raised from the bottom, and the line led directly towards the
grapnel, which, as Hutter had explained, was dropped above the suction
of the current.

“Thank God!” ejaculated Hurry, “there is daylight, and we shall soon
have a chance of seeing our inimies, if we are to feel 'em.”

“That is more than you or any man can say,” growled Hutter. “There is no
spot so likely to harbor a party as the shore around the outlet, and the
moment we clear these trees and get into open water, will be the most
trying time, since it will leave the enemy a cover, while it puts us
out of one. Judith, girl, do you and Hetty leave the oar to take care of
itself; and go within the cabin; and be mindful not to show your faces
at a window; for they who will look at them won't stop to praise their
beauty. And now, Hurry, we'll step into this outer room ourselves, and
haul through the door, where we shall all be safe, from a surprise, at
least. Friend Deerslayer, as the current is lighter, and the line has
all the strain on it that is prudent, do you keep moving from window to
window, taking care not to let your head be seen, if you set any value
on life. No one knows when or where we shall hear from our neighbors.”

Deerslayer complied, with a sensation that had nothing in common with
fear, but which had all the interest of a perfectly novel and a most
exciting situation. For the first time in his life he was in the
vicinity of enemies, or had good reason to think so; and that, too,
under all the thrilling circumstances of Indian surprises and Indian
artifices. As he took his stand at the window, the ark was just passing
through the narrowest part of the stream, a point where the water first
entered what was properly termed the river, and where the trees fairly
interlocked overhead, causing the current to rush into an arch of
verdure; a feature as appropriate and peculiar to the country, perhaps,
as that of Switzerland, where the rivers come rushing literally from
chambers of ice.

The ark was in the act of passing the last curve of this leafy entrance,
as Deerslayer, having examined all that could be seen of the eastern
bank of the river, crossed the room to look from the opposite window, at
the western. His arrival at this aperture was most opportune, for he
had no sooner placed his eye at a crack, than a sight met his gaze that
might well have alarmed a sentinel so young and inexperienced. A sapling
overhung the water, in nearly half a circle, having first grown towards
the light, and then been pressed down into this form by the weight of
the snows; a circumstance of common occurrence in the American woods.
On this no less than six Indians had already appeared, others standing
ready to follow them, as they left room; each evidently bent on running
out on the trunk, and dropping on the roof of the ark as it passed
beneath. This would have been an exploit of no great difficulty, the
inclination of the tree admitting of an easy passage, the adjoining
branches offering ample support for the hands, and the fall being too
trifling to be apprehended. When Deerslayer first saw this party, it was
just unmasking itself, by ascending the part of the tree nearest to the
earth, or that which was much the most difficult to overcome; and his
knowledge of Indian habits told him at once that they were all in their
war-paint, and belonged to a hostile tribe.

“Pull, Hurry,” he cried; “pull for your life, and as you love Judith
Hutter! Pull, man, pull!”

This call was made to one that the young man knew had the strength of a
giant. It was so earnest and solemn, that both Hutter and March felt
it was not idly given, and they applied all their force to the line
simultaneously, and at a most critical moment. The scow redoubled its
motion, and seemed to glide from under the tree as if conscious of
the danger that was impending overhead. Perceiving that they were
discovered, the Indians uttered the fearful war-whoop, and running
forward on the tree, leaped desperately towards their fancied prize.
There were six on the tree, and each made the effort. All but their
leader fell into the river more or less distant from the ark, as they
came, sooner or later, to the leaping place. The chief, who had taken
the dangerous post in advance, having an earlier opportunity than the
others, struck the scow just within the stern. The fall proving so much
greater than he had anticipated, he was slightly stunned, and for a
moment he remained half bent and unconscious of his situation. At this
instant Judith rushed from the cabin, her beauty heightened by the
excitement that produced the bold act, which flushed her cheek to
crimson, and, throwing all her strength into the effort, she pushed
the intruder over the edge of the scow, headlong into the river. This
decided feat was no sooner accomplished than the woman resumed her sway;
Judith looked over the stern to ascertain what had become of the man,
and the expression of her eyes softened to concern, next, her cheek
crimsoned between shame and surprise at her own temerity, and then she
laughed in her own merry and sweet manner. All this occupied less than a
minute, when the arm of Deerslayer was thrown around her waist, and she
was dragged swiftly within the protection of the cabin. This retreat was
not effected too soon. Scarcely were the two in safety, when the forest
was filled with yells, and bullets began to patter against the logs.

The ark being in swift motion all this while, it was beyond the danger
of pursuit by the time these little events had occurred; and the
savages, as soon as the first burst of their anger had subsided, ceased
firing, with the consciousness that they were expending their ammunition
in vain. When the scow came up over her grapnel, Hutter tripped the
latter in a way not to impede the motion; and being now beyond the
influence of the current, the vessel continued to drift ahead, until
fairly in the open lake, though still near enough to the land to render
exposure to a rifle-bullet dangerous. Hutter and March got out two small
sweeps and, covered by the cabin, they soon urged the ark far enough
from the shore to leave no inducement to their enemies to make any
further attempt to injure them.


Chapter V.


    “Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
    The hart ungalled play,
    For some must watch, while some must sleep,
    Thus runs the world away.”

    Hamlet, III.ii.271-74

Another consultation took place in the forward part of the scow,
at which both Judith and Hetty were present. As no danger could now
approach unseen, immediate uneasiness had given place to the concern
which attended the conviction that enemies were in considerable force on
the shores of the lake, and that they might be sure no practicable means
of accomplishing their own destruction would be neglected. As a matter
of course Hutter felt these truths the deepest, his daughters having an
habitual reliance on his resources, and knowing too little to appreciate
fully all the risks they ran; while his male companions were at liberty
to quit him at any moment they saw fit. His first remark showed that
he had an eye to the latter circumstance, and might have betrayed, to a
keen observer, the apprehension that was just then uppermost.

“We've a great advantage over the Iroquois, or the enemy, whoever they
are, in being afloat,” he said.

“There's not a canoe on the lake that I don't know where it's hid; and
now yours is here. Hurry, there are but three more on the land, and
they're so snug in hollow logs that I don't believe the Indians could
find them, let them try ever so long.”

“There's no telling that--no one can say that,” put in Deerslayer; “a
hound is not more sartain on the scent than a red-skin, when he expects
to get anything by it. Let this party see scalps afore 'em, or plunder,
or honor accordin' to their idees of what honor is, and 't will be a
tight log that hides a canoe from their eyes.”

“You're right, Deerslayer,” cried Harry March; “you're downright Gospel
in this matter, and I rej'ice that my bunch of bark is safe enough here,
within reach of my arm. I calcilate they'll be at all the rest of the
canoes afore to-morrow night, if they are in ra'al 'arnest to smoke you
out, old Tom, and we may as well overhaul our paddles for a pull.”

Hutter made no immediate reply. He looked about him in silence for quite
a minute, examining the sky, the lake, and the belt of forest which
inclosed it, as it might be hermetically, like one consulting their
signs. Nor did he find any alarming symptoms. The boundless woods were
sleeping in the deep repose of nature, the heavens were placid, but
still luminous with the light of the retreating sun, while the lake
looked more lovely and calm than it had before done that day. It was a
scene altogether soothing, and of a character to lull the passions into
a species of holy calm. How far this effect was produced, however, on
the party in the ark, must appear in the progress of our narrative.

“Judith,” called out the father, when he had taken this close but short
survey of the omens, “night is at hand; find our friends food; a long
march gives a sharp appetite.”

“We're not starving, Master Hutter,” March observed, “for we filled up
just as we reached the lake, and for one, I prefer the company of Jude
even to her supper. This quiet evening is very agreeable to sit by her
side.”

“Natur' is natur',” objected Hutter, “and must be fed. Judith, see to
the meal, and take your sister to help you. I've a little discourse to
hold with you, friends,” he continued, as soon as his daughters were out
of hearing, “and wish the girls away. You see my situation, and I should
like to hear your opinions concerning what is best to be done. Three
times have I been burnt out already, but that was on the shore; and I've
considered myself as pretty safe ever since I got the castle built,
and the ark afloat. My other accidents, however, happened in peaceable
times, being nothing more than such flurries as a man must meet with, in
the woods; but this matter looks serious, and your ideas would greatly
relieve my mind.”

“It's my notion, old Tom, that you, and your huts, and your traps, and
your whole possessions, hereaway, are in desperate jippardy,” returned
the matter-of-fact Hurry, who saw no use in concealment. “Accordin' to
my idees of valie, they're altogether not worth half as much to-day as
they was yesterday, nor would I give more for 'em, taking the pay in
skins.”

“Then I've children!” continued the father, making the allusion in a
way that it might have puzzled even an indifferent observer to say
was intended as a bait, or as an exclamation of paternal concern,
“daughters, as you know, Hurry, and good girls too, I may say, though I
am their father.”

“A man may say anything, Master Hutter, particularly when pressed by
time and circumstances. You've darters, as you say, and one of them
hasn't her equal on the frontiers for good looks, whatever she may have
for good behavior. As for poor Hetty, she's Hetty Hutter, and that's as
much as one can say about the poor thing. Give me Jude, if her conduct
was only equal to her looks!”

“I see, Harry March, I can only count on you as a fair-weather friend;
and I suppose that your companion will be of the same way of thinking,”
 returned the other, with a slight show of pride, that was not altogether
without dignity; “well, I must depend on Providence, which will not turn
a deaf ear, perhaps, to a father's prayers.”

“If you've understood Hurry, here, to mean that he intends to desart
you,” said Deerslayer, with an earnest simplicity that gave double
assurance of its truth, “I think you do him injustice, as I know you
do me, in supposing I would follow him, was he so ontrue-hearted as to
leave a family of his own color in such a strait as this. I've come on
this at take, Master Hutter, to rende'vous a fri'nd, and I only wish he
was here himself, as I make no doubt he will be at sunset to-morrow, when
you'd have another rifle to aid you; an inexper'enced one, I'll allow,
like my own, but one that has proved true so often ag'in the game, big
and little, that I'll answer for its sarvice ag'in mortals.”

“May I depend on you to stand by me and my daughters, then, Deerslayer?”
 demanded the old man, with a father's anxiety in his countenance.

“That may you, Floating Tom, if that's your name; and as a brother would
stand by a sister, a husband his wife, or a suitor his sweetheart. In
this strait you may count on me, through all advarsities; and I think
Hurry does discredit to his natur' and wishes, if you can't count on
him.”

“Not he,” cried Judith, thrusting her handsome face out of the door;
“his nature is hurry, as well as his name, and he'll hurry off, as
soon as he thinks his fine figure in danger. Neither 'old Tom,' nor his
'gals,' will depend much on Master March, now they know him, but you
they will rely on, Deerslayer; for your honest face and honest heart
tell us that what you promise you will perform.”

This was said, as much, perhaps, in affected scorn for Hurry, as in
sincerity. Still, it was not said without feeling. The fine face of
Judith sufficiently proved the latter circumstance; and if the conscious
March fancied that he had never seen in it a stronger display of
contempt--a feeling in which the beauty was apt to indulge--than while
she was looking at him, it certainly seldom exhibited more of a womanly
softness and sensibility, than when her speaking blue eyes were turned
on his travelling companion.

“Leave us, Judith,” Hutter ordered sternly, before either of the young
men could reply; “leave us; and do not return until you come with
the venison and fish. The girl has been spoilt by the flattery of the
officers, who sometimes find their way up here, Master March, and you'll
not think any harm of her silly words.”

“You never said truer syllable, old Tom,” retorted Hurry, who smarted
under Judith's observations; “the devil-tongued youngsters of the
garrison have proved her undoing! I scarce know Jude any longer, and
shall soon take to admiring her sister, who is getting to be much more
to my fancy.”

“I'm glad to hear this, Harry, and look upon it as a sign that you're
coming to your right senses. Hetty would make a much safer and more
rational companion than Jude, and would be much the most likely to
listen to your suit, as the officers have, I greatly fear, unsettled her
sister's mind.”

“No man needs a safer wife than Hetty,” said Hurry, laughing, “though
I'll not answer for her being of the most rational. But no matter;
Deerslayer has not misconceived me, when he told you I should be found
at my post. I'll not quit you, Uncle Tom, just now, whatever may be my
feelin's and intentions respecting your eldest darter.”

Hurry had a respectable reputation for prowess among his associates,
and Hutter heard this pledge with a satisfaction that was not concealed.
Even the great personal strength of such an aid became of moment, in
moving the ark, as well as in the species of hand-to-hand conflicts,
that were not unfrequent in the woods; and no commander who was hard
pressed could feel more joy at hearing of the arrival of reinforcements,
than the borderer experienced at being told this important auxiliary
was not about to quit him. A minute before, Hutter would have been well
content to compromise his danger, by entering into a compact to act only
on the defensive; but no sooner did he feel some security on this
point, than the restlessness of man induced him to think of the means of
carrying the war into the enemy's country.

“High prices are offered for scalps on both sides,” he observed, with a
grim smile, as if he felt the force of the inducement, at the very time
he wished to affect a superiority to earning money by means that the
ordinary feelings of those who aspire to be civilized men repudiated,
even while they were adopted. “It isn't right, perhaps, to take gold for
human blood; and yet, when mankind is busy in killing one another, there
can be no great harm in adding a little bit of skin to the plunder.
What's your sentiments, Hurry, touching these p'ints?”

“That you've made a vast mistake, old man, in calling savage blood human
blood, at all. I think no more of a red-skin's scalp than I do of a pair
of wolf's ears; and would just as lief finger money for the one as for
the other. With white people 't is different, for they've a nat'ral
avarsion to being scalped; whereas your Indian shaves his head
in readiness for the knife, and leaves a lock of hair by way of
braggadocio, that one can lay hold of in the bargain.”

“That's manly, however, and I felt from the first that we had only to
get you on our side, to have your heart and hand,” returned Tom, losing
all his reserve, as he gained a renewed confidence in the disposition
of his companions. “Something more may turn up from this inroad of the
red-skins than they bargained for. Deerslayer, I conclude you're of
Hurry's way of thinking, and look upon money 'arned in this way as being
as likely to pass as money 'arned in trapping or hunting.”

“I've no such feelin', nor any wish to harbor it, not I,” returned
the other. “My gifts are not scalpers' gifts, but such as belong to my
religion and color. I'll stand by you, old man, in the ark or in the
castle, the canoe or the woods, but I'll not unhumanize my natur' by
falling into ways that God intended for another race. If you and
Hurry have got any thoughts that lean towards the colony's gold, go by
yourselves in s'arch of it, and leave the females to my care. Much as I
must differ from you both on all gifts that do not properly belong to a
white man, we shall agree that it is the duty of the strong to take
care of the weak, especially when the last belong to them that natur'
intended man to protect and console by his gentleness and strength.”

“Hurry Harry, that is a lesson you might learn and practise on to some
advantage,” said the sweet, but spirited voice of Judith, from the
cabin; a proof that she had over-heard all that had hitherto been said.

“No more of this, Jude,” called out the father angrily. “Move farther
off; we are about to talk of matters unfit for a woman to listen to.”

Hutter did not take any steps, however, to ascertain whether he
was obeyed or not; but dropping his voice a little, he pursued the
discourse.

“The young man is right, Hurry,” he said; “and we can leave the children
in his care. Now, my idea is just this; and I think you'll agree that it
is rational and correct. There's a large party of these savages on shore
and, though I didn't tell it before the girls, for they're womanish,
and apt to be troublesome when anything like real work is to be done,
there's women among 'em. This I know from moccasin prints; and 't is
likely they are hunters, after all, who have been out so long that they
know nothing of the war, or of the bounties.”

“In which case, old Tom, why was their first salute an attempt to cut
our throats?”

“We don't know that their design was so bloody. It's natural and easy
for an Indian to fall into ambushes and surprises; and, no doubt they
wished to get on board the ark first, and to make their conditions
afterwards. That a disapp'inted savage should fire at us, is in rule;
and I think nothing of that. Besides, how often they burned me out,
and robbed my traps--ay, and pulled trigger on me, in the most peaceful
times?”

“The blackguards will do such things, I must allow; and we pay 'em off
pretty much in their own c'ine. Women would not be on the war-path,
sartainly; and, so far, there's reason in your idee.”

“Nor would a hunter be in his war-paint,” returned Deerslayer. “I saw
the Mingos, and know that they are out on the trail of mortal men; and
not for beaver or deer.”

“There you have it ag'in, old fellow,” said Hurry. “In the way of an
eye, now, I'd as soon trust this young man, as trust the oldest settler
in the colony; if he says paint, why paint it was.”

“Then a hunting-party and a war-party have met, for women must have been
with 'em. It's only a few days since the runner went through with the
tidings of the troubles; and it may be that warriors have come out to
call in their women and children, to get an early blow.”

“That would stand the courts, and is just the truth,” cried Hurry;
“you've got it now, old Tom, and I should like to hear what you mean to
make out of it.”

“The bounty,” returned the other, looking up at his attentive companion
in a cool, sullen manner, in which, however, heartless cupidity and
indifference to the means were far more conspicuous than any feelings of
animosity or revenge.

“If there's women, there's children; and big and little have scalps; the
colony pays for all alike.”

“More shame to it, that it should do so,” interrupted Deerslayer;
“more shame to it, that it don't understand its gifts, and pay greater
attention to the will of God.”

“Hearken to reason, lad, and don't cry out afore you understand a
case,” returned the unmoved Hurry; “the savages scalp your fri'nds, the
Delawares, or Mohicans whichever they may be, among the rest; and why
shouldn't we scalp? I will own, it would be ag'in right for you and me
now, to go into the settlements and bring out scalps, but it's a very
different matter as concerns Indians. A man shouldn't take scalps, if he
isn't ready to be scalped, himself, on fitting occasions. One good turn
desarves another, the world over. That's reason, and I believe it to be
good religion.”

“Ay, Master Hurry,” again interrupted the rich voice of Judith, “is it
religion to say that one bad turn deserves another?”

“I'll never reason ag'in you, Judy, for you beat me with beauty, if you
can't with sense. Here's the Canadas paying their Injins for scalps, and
why not we pay--”

“Our Indians!” exclaimed the girl, laughing with a sort of melancholy
merriment. “Father, father! think no more of this, and listen to the
advice of Deerslayer, who has a conscience; which is more than I can say
or think of Harry March.”

Hutter now rose, and, entering the cabin, he compelled his daughters
to go into the adjoining room, when he secured both the doors, and
returned. Then he and Hurry pursued the subject; but, as the purport of
all that was material in this discourse will appear in the narrative,
it need not be related here in detail. The reader, however, can have
no difficulty in comprehending the morality that presided over their
conference. It was, in truth, that which, in some form or other, rules
most of the acts of men, and in which the controlling principle is that
one wrong will justify another. Their enemies paid for scalps, and this
was sufficient to justify the colony for retaliating. It is true, the
French used the same argument, a circumstance, as Hurry took occasion
to observe in answer to one of Deerslayer's objections, that proved its
truth, as mortal enemies would not be likely to have recourse to the
same reason unless it were a good one. But neither Hutter nor Hurry was
a man likely to stick at trifles in matters connected with the right of
the aborigines, since it is one of the consequences of aggression that
it hardens the conscience, as the only means of quieting it. In the
most peaceable state of the country, a species of warfare was carried on
between the Indians, especially those of the Canadas, and men of their
caste; and the moment an actual and recognized warfare existed, it was
regarded as the means of lawfully revenging a thousand wrongs, real
and imaginary. Then, again, there was some truth, and a good deal of
expediency, in the principle of retaliation, of which they both
availed themselves, in particular, to answer the objections of their
juster-minded and more scrupulous companion.

“You must fight a man with his own we'pons, Deerslayer,” cried Hurry,
in his uncouth dialect, and in his dogmatical manner of disposing of all
oral propositions; “if he's f'erce you must be f'ercer; if he's stout
of heart, you must be stouter. This is the way to get the better of
Christian or savage: by keeping up to this trail, you'll get soonest to
the ind of your journey.”

“That's not Moravian doctrine, which teaches that all are to be judged
according to their talents or l'arning; the Injin like an Injin; and the
white man like a white man. Some of their teachers say, that if you're
struck on the cheek, it's a duty to turn the other side of the face, and
take another blow, instead of seeking revenge, whereby I understand--”

“That's enough!” shouted Hurry; “that's all I want, to prove a man's
doctrine! How long would it take to kick a man through the colony--in at
one ind and out at the other, on that principle?”

“Don't mistake me, March,” returned the young hunter, with dignity; “I
don't understand by this any more than that it's best to do this, if
possible. Revenge is an Injin gift, and forgiveness a white man's.
That's all. Overlook all you can is what's meant; and not revenge all
you can. As for kicking, Master Hurry,” and Deerslayer's sunburnt cheek
flushed as he continued, “into the colony, or out of the colony, that's
neither here nor there, seeing no one proposes it, and no one would
be likely to put up with it. What I wish to say is, that a red-skin's
scalping don't justify a pale-face's scalping.”

“Do as you're done by, Deerslayer; that's ever the Christian parson's
doctrine.”

“No, Hurry, I've asked the Moravians consarning that; and it's
altogether different. 'Do as you would be done by,' they tell me, is the
true saying, while men practyse the false. They think all the colonies
wrong that offer bounties for scalps, and believe no blessing will
follow the measures. Above all things, they forbid revenge.”

“That for your Moravians!” cried March, snapping his fingers; “they're
the next thing to Quakers; and if you'd believe all they tell you, not
even a 'rat would be skinned, out of marcy. Who ever heard of marcy on a
muskrat!”

The disdainful manner of Hurry prevented a reply, and he and the old man
resumed the discussion of their plans in a more quiet and confidential
manner. This confidence lasted until Judith appeared, bearing the simple
but savory supper. March observed, with a little surprise, that she
placed the choicest bits before Deerslayer, and that in the little
nameless attentions it was in her power to bestow, she quite obviously
manifested a desire to let it be seen that she deemed him the honored
guest. Accustomed, however, to the waywardness and coquetry of the
beauty, this discovery gave him little concern, and he ate with an
appetite that was in no degree disturbed by any moral causes. The
easily-digested food of the forests offering the fewest possible
obstacles to the gratification of this great animal indulgence,
Deerslayer, notwithstanding the hearty meal both had taken in the woods,
was in no manner behind his companion in doing justice to the viands.

An hour later the scene had greatly changed. The lake was still placid
and glassy, but the gloom of the hour had succeeded to the soft twilight
of a summer evening, and all within the dark setting of the woods lay in
the quiet repose of night. The forests gave up no song, or cry, or
even murmur, but looked down from the hills on the lovely basin they
encircled, in solemn stillness; and the only sound that was audible
was the regular dip of the sweeps, at which Hurry and Deerslayer lazily
pushed, impelling the ark towards the castle. Hutter had withdrawn to
the stern of the scow, in order to steer, but, finding that the young
men kept even strokes, and held the desired course by their own skill,
he permitted the oar to drag in the water, took a seat on the end of the
vessel, and lighted his pipe. He had not been thus placed many minutes,
ere Hetty came stealthily out of the cabin, or house, as they usually
termed that part of the ark, and placed herself at his feet, on a
little bench that she brought with her. As this movement was by no means
unusual in his feeble-minded child, the old man paid no other attention
to it than to lay his hand kindly on her head, in an affectionate
and approving manner; an act of grace that the girl received in meek
silence.

After a pause of several minutes, Hetty began to sing. Her voice was
low and tremulous, but it was earnest and solemn. The words and the
tune were of the simplest form, the first being a hymn that she had been
taught by her mother, and the last one of those natural melodies
that find favor with all classes, in every age, coming from and being
addressed to the feelings. Hutter never listened to this simple strain
without finding his heart and manner softened; facts that his daughter
well knew, and by which she had often profited, through the sort of holy
instinct that enlightens the weak of mind, more especially in their aims
toward good.

Hetty's low, sweet tones had not been raised many moments, when the dip
of the oars ceased, and the holy strain arose singly on the breathing
silence of the wilderness. As if she gathered courage with the theme,
her powers appeared to increase as she proceeded; and though nothing
vulgar or noisy mingled in her melody, its strength and melancholy
tenderness grew on the ear, until the air was filled with this simple
homage of a soul that seemed almost spotless. That the men forward
were not indifferent to this touching interruption, was proved by their
inaction; nor did their oars again dip until the last of the sweet
sounds had actually died among the remarkable shores, which, at that
witching hour, would waft even the lowest modulations of the human voice
more than a mile. Hutter was much affected; for rude as he was by early
habits, and even ruthless as he had got to be by long exposure to the
practices of the wilderness, his nature was of that fearful mixture of
good and evil that so generally enters into the moral composition of
man.

“You are sad to-night, child,” said the father, whose manner and language
usually assumed some of the gentleness and elevation of the civilized
life he had led in youth, when he thus communed with this particular
child; “we have just escaped from enemies, and ought rather to rejoice.”

“You can never do it, father!” said Hetty, in a low, remonstrating
manner, taking his hard, knotty hand into both her own; “you have talked
long with Harry March; but neither of you have the heart to do it!”

“This is going beyond your means, foolish child; you must have been
naughty enough to have listened, or you could know nothing of our talk.”

“Why should you and Hurry kill people--especially women and children?”

“Peace, girl, peace; we are at war, and must do to our enemies as our
enemies would do to us.”

“That's not it, father! I heard Deerslayer say how it was. You must do
to your enemies as you wish your enemies would do to you. No man wishes
his enemies to kill him.”

“We kill our enemies in war, girl, lest they should kill us. One side or
the other must begin; and them that begin first, are most apt to get the
victory. You know nothing about these things, poor Hetty, and had best
say nothing.”

“Judith says it is wrong, father; and Judith has sense though I have
none.”

“Jude understands better than to talk to me of these matters; for she
has sense, as you say, and knows I'll not bear it. Which would you
prefer, Hetty; to have your own scalp taken, and sold to the French, or
that we should kill our enemies, and keep them from harming us?”

“That's not it, father! Don't kill them, nor let them kill us. Sell your
skins, and get more, if you can; but don't sell human blood.”

“Come, come, child; let us talk of matters you understand. Are you glad
to see our old friend, March, back again? You like Hurry, and must know
that one day he may be your brother--if not something nearer.”

“That can't be, father,” returned the girl, after a considerable pause;
“Hurry has had one father, and one mother; and people never have two.”

“So much for your weak mind, Hetty. When Jude marries, her husband's
father will be her father, and her husband's sister her sister. If she
should marry Hurry, then he will be your brother.”

“Judith will never have Hurry,” returned the girl mildly, but
positively; “Judith don't like Hurry.”

“That's more than you can know, Hetty. Harry March is the handsomest,
and the strongest, and the boldest young man that ever visits the lake;
and, as Jude is the greatest beauty, I don't see why they shouldn't come
together. He has as much as promised that he will enter into this job
with me, on condition that I'll consent.”

Hetty began to move her body back and forth, and other-wise to express
mental agitation; but she made no answer for more than a minute. Her
father, accustomed to her manner, and suspecting no immediate cause of
concern, continued to smoke with the apparent phlegm which would seem to
belong to that particular species of enjoyment.

“Hurry is handsome, father,” said Hetty, with a simple emphasis, that
she might have hesitated about using, had her mind been more alive to
the inferences of others.

“I told you so, child,” muttered old Hutter, without removing the pipe
from between his teeth; “he's the likeliest youth in these parts; and
Jude is the likeliest young woman I've met with since her poor mother
was in her best days.”

“Is it wicked to be ugly, father?'”

“One might be guilty of worse things--but you're by no means ugly;
though not so comely as Jude.”

“Is Judith any happier for being so handsome?”

“She may be, child, and she may not be. But talk of other matters now,
for you hardly understand these, poor Hetty. How do you like our new
acquaintance, Deerslayer?”

“He isn't handsome, father. Hurry is far handsomer than Deerslayer.”

“That's true; but they say he is a noted hunter! His fame had reached
me before I ever saw him; and I did hope he would prove to be as stout
a warrior as he is dexterous with the deer. All men are not alike,
howsever, child; and it takes time, as I know by experience, to give a
man a true wilderness heart.”

“Have I got a wilderness heart, father--and Hurry, is his heart true
wilderness?”

“You sometimes ask queer questions, Hetty! Your heart is good, child,
and fitter for the settlements than for the woods; while your reason is
fitter for the woods than for the settlements.”

“Why has Judith more reason than I, father?”

“Heaven help thee, child: this is more than I can answer. God gives
sense, and appearance, and all these things; and he grants them as he
seeth fit. Dost thou wish for more sense?”

“Not I. The little I have troubles me; for when I think the hardest,
then I feel the unhappiest. I don't believe thinking is good for me,
though I do wish I was as handsome as Judith!”

“Why so, poor child? Thy sister's beauty may cause her trouble, as it
caused her mother before her. It's no advantage, Hetty, to be so marked
for anything as to become an object of envy, or to be sought after more
than others.”

“Mother was good, if she was handsome,” returned the girl, the tears
starting to her eyes, as usually happened when she adverted to her
deceased parent.

Old Hutter, if not equally affected, was moody and silent at this
allusion to his wife. He continued smoking, without appearing disposed
to make any answer, until his simple-minded daughter repeated her
remark, in a way to show that she felt uneasiness lest he might be
inclined to deny her assertion. Then he knocked the ashes out of his
pipe, and laying his hand in a sort of rough kindness on the girl's
head, he made a reply.

“Thy mother was too good for this world,” he said; “though others might
not think so. Her good looks did not befriend her; and you have no
occasion to mourn that you are not as much like her as your sister.
Think less of beauty, child, and more of your duty, and you'll be as
happy on this lake as you could be in the king's palace.”

“I know it, father; but Hurry says beauty is everything in a young
woman.”

Hutter made an ejaculation expressive of dissatisfaction, and went
forward, passing through the house in order to do so. Hetty's simple
betrayal of her weakness in behalf of March gave him uneasiness on a
subject concerning which he had never felt before, and he determined
to come to an explanation at once with his visitor; for directness of
speech and decision in conduct were two of the best qualities of
this rude being, in whom the seeds of a better education seemed to be
constantly struggling upwards, to be choked by the fruits of a life in
which his hard struggles for subsistence and security had steeled his
feelings and indurated his nature. When he reached the forward end of
the scow, he manifested an intention to relieve Deerslayer at the oar,
directing the latter to take his own place aft. By these changes, the
old man and Hurry were again left alone, while the young hunter was
transferred to the other end of the ark.

Hetty had disappeared when Deerslayer reached his new post, and for some
little time he directed the course of the slow-moving craft by himself.
It was not long, however, before Judith came out of the cabin, as if
disposed to do the honors of the place to a stranger engaged in the
service of her family. The starlight was sufficient to permit objects to
be plainly distinguished when near at hand, and the bright eyes of the
girl had an expression of kindness in them, when they met those of the
youth, that the latter was easily enabled to discover. Her rich
hair shaded her spirited and yet soft countenance, even at that hour
rendering it the more beautiful--as the rose is loveliest when reposing
amid the shadows and contrasts of its native foliage. Little ceremony
is used in the intercourse of the woods; and Judith had acquired a
readiness of address, by the admiration that she so generally excited,
which, if it did not amount to forwardness, certainly in no degree lent
to her charms the aid of that retiring modesty on which poets love to
dwell.

“I thought I should have killed myself with laughing, Deerslayer,” the
beauty abruptly but coquettishly commenced, “when I saw that Indian
dive into the river! He was a good-looking savage, too,” the girl always
dwelt on personal beauty as a sort of merit, “and yet one couldn't stop
to consider whether his paint would stand water!”

“And I thought they would have killed you with their we'pons, Judith,”
 returned Deerslayer; “it was an awful risk for a female to run in the
face of a dozen Mingos!”

“Did that make you come out of the cabin, in spite of their rifles,
too?” asked the girl, with more real interest than she would have cared
to betray, though with an indifference of manner that was the result of
a good deal of practice united to native readiness.

“Men ar'n't apt to see females in danger, and not come to their
assistance. Even a Mingo knows that.”

This sentiment was uttered with as much simplicity of manner as of
feeling, and Judith rewarded it with a smile so sweet, that even
Deerslayer, who had imbibed a prejudice against the girl in consequence
of Hurry's suspicions of her levity, felt its charm, notwithstanding
half its winning influence was lost in the feeble light. It at once
created a sort of confidence between them, and the discourse was
continued on the part of the hunter, without the lively consciousness
of the character of this coquette of the wilderness, with which it had
certainly commenced.

“You are a man of deeds, and not of words, I see plainly, Deerslayer,”
 continued the beauty, taking her seat near the spot where the other
stood, “and I foresee we shall be very good friends. Hurry Harry has a
tongue, and, giant as he is, he talks more than he performs.”

“March is your fri'nd, Judith; and fri'nds should be tender of each
other, when apart.”

“We all know what Hurry's friendship comes to! Let him have his own way
in everything, and he's the best fellow in the colony; but 'head him
off,' as you say of the deer, and he is master of everything near him
but himself. Hurry is no favorite of mine, Deerslayer; and I dare say,
if the truth was known, and his conversation about me repeated, it would
be found that he thinks no better of me than I own I do of him.”

The latter part of this speech was not uttered without uneasiness. Had
the girl's companion been more sophisticated, he might have observed the
averted face, the manner in which the pretty little foot was agitated,
and other signs that, for some unexplained reason, the opinions of March
were not quite as much a matter of indifference to her as she thought
fit to pretend. Whether this was no more than the ordinary working of
female vanity, feeling keenly even when it affected not to feel at all,
or whether it proceeded from that deeply-seated consciousness of right
and wrong which God himself has implanted in our breasts that we may
know good from evil, will be made more apparent to the reader as we
proceed in the tale. Deerslayer felt embarrassed. He well remembered the
cruel imputations left by March's distrust; and, while he did not wish
to injure his associate's suit by exciting resentment against him, his
tongue was one that literally knew no guile. To answer without saying
more or less than he wished, was consequently a delicate duty.

“March has his say of all things in natur', whether of fri'nd or foe,”
 slowly and cautiously rejoined the hunter. “He's one of them that speak
as they feel while the tongue's a-going, and that's sometimes different
from what they'd speak if they took time to consider. Give me a
Delaware, Judith, for one that reflects and ruminates on his idees!
Inmity has made him thoughtful, and a loose tongue is no ricommend at
their council fires.”

“I dare say March's tongue goes free enough when it gets on the subject
of Judith Hutter and her sister,” said the girl, rousing herself as if
in careless disdain. “Young women's good names are a pleasant matter of
discourse with some that wouldn't dare be so open-mouthed if there was a
brother in the way. Master March may find it pleasant to traduce us, but
sooner or later he'll repent.

“Nay, Judith, this is taking the matter up too much in 'arnest. Hurry
has never whispered a syllable ag'in the good name of Hetty, to begin
with--”

“I see how it is--I see how it is,” impetuously interrupted Judith.
“I am the one he sees fit to scorch with his withering tongue! Hetty,
indeed! Poor Hetty!” she continued, her voice sinking into low, husky
tones, that seemed nearly to stifle her in the utterance; “she is beyond
and above his slanderous malice! Poor Hetty! If God has created her
feeble-minded, the weakness lies altogether on the side of errors of
which she seems to know nothing. The earth never held a purer being than
Hetty Hutter, Deerslayer.”

“I can believe it--yes, I can believe that, Judith, and I hope 'arnestly
that the same can be said of her handsome sister.”

There was a soothing sincerity in the voice of Deerslayer, which touched
the girl's feelings; nor did the allusion to her beauty lessen the
effect with one who only knew too well the power of her personal charms.
Nevertheless, the still, small voice of conscience was not hushed, and
it prompted the answer which she made, after giving herself time to
reflect.

“I dare say Hurry had some of his vile hints about the people of the
garrisons,” she added. “He knows they are gentlemen, and can never
forgive any one for being what he feels he can never become himself.”

“Not in the sense of a king's officer, Judith, sartainly, for March
has no turn that-a-way; but in the sense of reality, why may not a
beaver-hunter be as respectable as a governor? Since you speak of it
yourself, I'll not deny that he did complain of one as humble as you
being so much in the company of scarlet coats and silken sashes. But 't
was jealousy that brought it out of him, and I do think he mourned over
his own thoughts as a mother would have mourned over her child.”

Perhaps Deerslayer was not aware of the full meaning that his earnest
language conveyed. It is certain that he did not see the color that
crimsoned the whole of Judith's fine face, nor detect the uncontrollable
distress that immediately after changed its hue to deadly paleness. A
minute or two elapsed in profound stillness, the splash of the water
seeming to occupy all the avenues of sound; and then Judith arose, and
grasped the hand of the hunter, almost convulsively, with one of her
own.

“Deerslayer,” she said, hurriedly, “I'm glad the ice is broke between
us. They say that sudden friendships lead to long enmities, but I do not
believe it will turn out so with us. I know not how it is--but you are
the first man I ever met, who did not seem to wish to flatter--to wish
my ruin--to be an enemy in disguise--never mind; say nothing to Hurry,
and another time we'll talk together again.”

As the girl released her grasp, she vanished in the house, leaving the
astonished young man standing at the steering-oar, as motionless as
one of the pines on the hills. So abstracted, indeed, had his thoughts
become, that he was hailed by Hutter to keep the scow's head in the
right direction, before he remembered his actual situation.



Chapter VI.


    “So spake the apostate Angel, though in pain,
    Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair.”

    Paradise lost, I.  125-26.

Shortly after the disappearance of Judith, a light southerly air arose,
and Hutter set a large square sail, that had once been the flying
top-sail of an Albany sloop, but which having become threadbare in
catching the breezes of Tappan, had been condemned and sold. He had a
light, tough spar of tamarack that he could raise on occasion, and with
a little contrivance, his duck was spread to the wind in a sufficiently
professional manner. The effect on the ark was such as to supersede the
necessity of rowing; and in about two hours the castle was seen, in the
darkness, rising out of the water, at the distance of a hundred yards.
The sail was then lowered, and by slow degrees the scow drifted up to
the building, and was secured.

No one had visited the house since Hurry and his companion left it. The
place was found in the quiet of midnight, a sort of type of the solitude
of a wilderness. As an enemy was known to be near, Hutter directed his
daughters to abstain from the use of lights, luxuries in which they
seldom indulged during the warm months, lest they might prove beacons to
direct their foes where they might be found.

“In open daylight I shouldn't fear a host of savages behind these stout
logs, and they without any cover to skulk into,” added Hutter, when he
had explained to his guests the reasons why he forbade the use of light;
“for I've three or four trusty weapons always loaded, and Killdeer, in
particular, is a piece that never misses. But it's a different thing at
night. A canoe might get upon us unseen, in the dark; and the savages
have so many cunning ways of attacking, that I look upon it as bad
enough to deal with 'em under a bright sun. I built this dwelling in
order to have 'em at arm's length, in case we should ever get to
blows again. Some people think it's too open and exposed, but I'm for
anchoring out here, clear of underbrush and thickets, as the surest
means of making a safe berth.”

“You was once a sailor, they tell me, old Tom?” said Hurry, in his
abrupt manner, struck by one or two expressions that the other had just
used, “and some people believe you could give us strange accounts of
inimies and shipwrecks, if you'd a mind to come out with all you know?”

“There are people in this world, Hurry,” returned the other, evasively,
“who live on other men's thoughts; and some such often find their way
into the woods. What I've been, or what I've seen in youth, is of less
matter now than what the savages are. It's of more account to find out
what will happen in the next twenty-four hours than to talk over what
happened twenty-four years since.”

“That's judgment, Deerslayer; yes, that's sound judgment. Here's Judith
and Hetty to take care of, to say nothing of our own top-knots; and, for
my part, I can sleep as well in the dark as I could under a noonday sun.
To me it's no great matter whether there is light or not, to see to shut
my eyes by.”

As Deerslayer seldom thought it necessary to answer his companion's
peculiar vein of humor, and Hutter was evidently indisposed to dwell
longer on the subject, it's discussion ceased with this remark. The
latter had something more on his mind, however, than recollections. His
daughters had no sooner left them, with an expressed intention of going
to bed, than he invited his two companions to follow him again into the
scow. Here the old man opened his project, keeping back the portion that
he had reserved for execution by Hurry and himself.

“The great object for people posted like ourselves is to command the
water,” he commenced. “So long as there is no other craft on the lake,
a bark canoe is as good as a man-of-war, since the castle will not be
easily taken by swimming. Now, there are but five canoes remaining in
these parts, two of which are mine, and one is Hurry's. These three
we have with us here; one being fastened in the canoe-dock beneath the
house, and the other two being alongside the scow. The other canoes
are housed on the shore, in hollow logs, and the savages, who are such
venomous enemies, will leave no likely place unexamined in the morning,
if they 're serious in s'arch of bounties--”

“Now, friend Hutter,” interrupted Hurry, “the Indian don't live that
can find a canoe that is suitably wintered. I've done something at this
business before now, and Deerslayer here knows that I am one that can
hide a craft in such a way that I can't find it myself.”

“Very true, Hurry,” put in the person to whom the appeal had been made,
“but you overlook the sarcumstance that if you couldn't see the trail of
the man who did the job, I could. I'm of Master Hutter's mind, that
it's far wiser to mistrust a savage's ingenuity, than to build any great
expectations on his want of eye-sight. If these two canoes can be got
off to the castle, therefore, the sooner it's done the better.”

“Will you be of the party that's to do it?” demanded Hutter, in a way to
show that the proposal both surprised and pleased him.

“Sartain. I'm ready to enlist in any enterprise that's not ag'in a white
man's lawful gifts. Natur' orders us to defend our lives, and the lives
of others, too, when there's occasion and opportunity. I'll follow you,
Floating Tom, into the Mingo camp, on such an arr'nd, and will strive to
do my duty, should we come to blows; though, never having been tried in
battle, I don't like to promise more than I may be able to perform. We
all know our wishes, but none know their might till put to the proof.”

“That's modest and suitable, lad,” exclaimed Hurry. “You've never
yet heard the crack of an angry rifle; and, let me tell you, 'tis as
different from the persuasion of one of your venison speeches, as the
laugh of Judith Hutter, in her best humor, is from the scolding of a
Dutch house keeper on the Mohawk. I don't expect you'll prove much of a
warrior, Deerslayer, though your equal with the bucks and the does don't
exist in all these parts. As for the ra'al sarvice, however, you'll turn
out rather rearward, according to my consait.”

“We'll see, Hurry, we'll see,” returned the other, meekly; so far as
human eye could discover, not at all disturbed by these expressed doubts
concerning his conduct on a point on which men are sensitive, precisely
in the degree that they feel the consciousness of demerit; “having never
been tried, I'll wait to know, before I form any opinion of myself; and
then there'll be sartainty, instead of bragging. I've heard of them
that was valiant afore the fight, who did little in it; and of them that
waited to know their own tempers, and found that they weren't as bad as
some expected, when put to the proof.”

“At any rate, we know you can use a paddle, young man,” said Hutter,
“and that's all we shall ask of you to-night. Let us waste no more time,
but get into the canoe, and do, in place of talking.”

As Hutter led the way, in the execution of his project, the boat was
soon ready, with Hurry and Deerslayer at the paddles. Before the old man
embarked himself, however, he held a conference of several minutes with
Judith, entering the house for that purpose; then, returning, he took
his place in the canoe, which left the side of the ark at the next
instant.

Had there been a temple reared to God, in that solitary wilderness, its
clock would have told the hour of midnight as the party set forth on
their expedition. The darkness had increased, though the night was still
clear, and the light of the stars sufficed for all the purposes of the
adventurers. Hutter alone knew the places where the canoes were hid,
and he directed the course, while his two athletic companions raised
and dipped their paddles with proper caution, lest the sound should be
carried to the ears of their enemies, across that sheet of placid water,
in the stillness of deep night. But the bark was too light to require
any extraordinary efforts, and skill supplying the place of strength,
in about half an hour they were approaching the shore, at a point near a
league from the castle.

“Lay on your paddles, men,” said Hutter, in a low voice, “and let us
look about us for a moment. We must now be all eyes and ears, for these
vermin have noses like bloodhounds.”

The shores of the lake were examined closely, in order to discover any
glimmering of light that might have been left in a camp; and the men
strained their eyes, in the obscurity, to see if some thread of smoke
was not still stealing along the mountainside, as it arose from the
dying embers of a fire. Nothing unusual could be traced; and as the
position was at some distance from the outlet, or the spot where the
savages had been met, it was thought safe to land. The paddles were
plied again, and the bows of the canoe ground upon the gravelly beach
with a gentle motion, and a sound barely audible. Hutter and Hurry
immediately landed, the former carrying his own and his friend's rifle,
leaving Deerslayer in charge of the canoe. The hollow log lay a little
distance up the side of the mountain, and the old man led the way
towards it, using so much caution as to stop at every third or fourth
step, to listen if any tread betrayed the presence of a foe. The same
death-like stillness, however, reigned on the midnight scene, and the
desired place was reached without an occurrence to induce alarm.

“This is it,” whispered Hutter, laying a foot on the trunk of a fallen
linden; “hand me the paddles first, and draw the boat out with care, for
the wretches may have left it for a bait, after all.”

“Keep my rifle handy, butt towards me, old fellow,” answered March.
“If they attack me loaded, I shall want to unload the piece at 'em, at
least. And feel if the pan is full.”

“All's right,” muttered the other; “move slow, when you get your load,
and let me lead the way.”

The canoe was drawn out of the log with the utmost care, raised by Hurry
to his shoulder, and the two began to return to the shore, moving but
a step at a time, lest they should tumble down the steep declivity. The
distance was not great, but the descent was extremely difficult; and,
towards the end of their little journey, Deerslayer was obliged to land
and meet them, in order to aid in lifting the canoe through the bushes.
With his assistance the task was successfully accomplished, and the
light craft soon floated by the side of the other canoe. This was no
sooner done, than all three turned anxiously towards the forest and the
mountain, expecting an enemy to break out of the one, or to come rushing
down the other. Still the silence was unbroken, and they all embarked
with the caution that had been used in coming ashore.

Hutter now steered broad off towards the centre of the lake. Having got
a sufficient distance from the shore, he cast his prize loose, knowing
that it would drift slowly up the lake before the light southerly air,
and intending to find it on his return. Thus relieved of his tow, the
old man held his way down the lake, steering towards the very point
where Hurry had made his fruitless attempt on the life of the deer. As
the distance from this point to the outlet was less than a mile, it
was like entering an enemy's country; and redoubled caution became
necessary. They reached the extremity of the point, however, and landed
in safety on the little gravelly beach already mentioned. Unlike the
last place at which they had gone ashore, here was no acclivity to
ascend, the mountains looming up in the darkness quite a quarter of a
mile farther west, leaving a margin of level ground between them and the
strand. The point itself, though long, and covered with tall trees, was
nearly flat, and for some distance only a few yards in width. Hutter and
Hurry landed as before, leaving their companion in charge of the boat.

In this instance, the dead tree that contained the canoe of which they
had come in quest lay about half-way between the extremity of the narrow
slip of land and the place where it joined the main shore; and knowing
that there was water so near him on his left, the old man led the way
along the eastern side of the belt with some confidence walking boldly,
though still with caution. He had landed at the point expressly to get
a glimpse into the bay and to make certain that the coast was clear;
otherwise he would have come ashore directly abreast of the hollow tree.
There was no difficulty in finding the latter, from which the canoe
was drawn as before, and instead of carrying it down to the place where
Deerslayer lay, it was launched at the nearest favorable spot. As soon
as it was in the water, Hurry entered it, and paddled round to the
point, whither Hutter also proceeded, following the beach. As the
three men had now in their possession all the boats on the lake, their
confidence was greatly increased, and there was no longer the same
feverish desire to quit the shore, or the same necessity for extreme
caution. Their position on the extremity of the long, narrow bit of land
added to the feeling of security, as it permitted an enemy to approach
in only one direction, that in their front, and under circumstances that
would render discovery, with their habitual vigilance, almost certain.
The three now landed together, and stood grouped in consultation on the
gravelly point.

“We've fairly tree'd the scamps,” said Hurry, chuckling at their
success; “if they wish to visit the castle, let 'em wade or swim! Old
Tom, that idee of your'n, in burrowing out in the lake, was high proof,
and carries a fine bead. There be men who would think the land safer
than the water; but, after all, reason shows it isn't; the beaver, and
rats, and other l'arned creatur's taking to the last when hard pressed.
I call our position now, entrenched, and set the Canadas at defiance.”

“Let us paddle along this south shore,” said Hutter, “and see if there's
no sign of an encampment; but, first, let me have a better look into the
bay, for no one has been far enough round the inner shore of the point
to make suit of that quarter yet.”

As Hutter ceased speaking, all three moved in the direction he had
named. Scarce had they fairly opened the bottom of the bay, when a
general start proved that their eyes had lighted on a common object
at the same instant. It was no more than a dying brand, giving out its
flickering and failing light; but at that hour, and in that place, it
was at once as conspicuous as “a good deed in a naughty world.”
 There was not a shadow of doubt that this fire had been kindled at an
encampment of the Indians. The situation, sheltered from observation on
all sides but one, and even on that except for a very short distance,
proved that more care had been taken to conceal the spot than would be
used for ordinary purposes, and Hutter, who knew that a spring was
near at hand, as well as one of the best fishing-stations on the lake,
immediately inferred that this encampment contained the women and
children of the party.

“That's not a warrior's encampment,” he growled to Hurry; “and there's
bounty enough sleeping round that fire to make a heavy division of
head-money. Send the lad to the canoes, for there'll come no good of him
in such an onset, and let us take the matter in hand at once, like men.”

“There's judgment in your notion, old Tom, and I like it to the
backbone. Deerslayer, do you get into the canoe, lad, and paddle off
into the lake with the spare one, and set it adrift, as we did with the
other; after which you can float along shore, as near as you can get to
the head of the bay, keeping outside the point, howsever, and outside
the rushes, too. You can hear us when we want you; and if there's any
delay, I'll call like a loon--yes, that'll do it--the call of a loon
shall be the signal. If you hear rifles, and feel like sogering, why,
you may close in, and see if you can make the same hand with the savages
that you do with the deer.”

“If my wishes could be followed, this matter would not be undertaken,
Hurry----”

“Quite true--nobody denies it, boy; but your wishes can't be followed;
and that inds the matter. So just canoe yourself off into the middle
of the lake, and by the time you get back there'll be movements in that
camp!”

The young man set about complying with great reluctance and a heavy
heart. He knew the prejudices of the frontiermen too well, however, to
attempt a remonstrance. The latter, indeed, under the circumstances,
might prove dangerous, as it would certainly prove useless. He paddled
the canoe, therefore, silently and with the former caution, to a spot
near the centre of the placid sheet of water, and set the boat just
recovered adrift, to float towards the castle, before the light
southerly air. This expedient had been adopted, in both cases, under
the certainty that the drift could not carry the light barks more than
a league or two, before the return of light, when they might easily be
overtaken in order to prevent any wandering savage from using them, by
swimming off and getting possession, a possible but scarcely a probable
event, all the paddles were retained.

No sooner had he set the recovered canoe adrift, than Deerslayer
turned the bows of his own towards the point on the shore that had been
indicated by Hurry. So light was the movement of the little craft,
and so steady the sweep of its master's arm, that ten minutes had not
elapsed ere it was again approaching the land, having, in that brief
time, passed over fully half a mile of distance. As soon as Deerslayer's
eye caught a glimpse of the rushes, of which there were many growing in
the water a hundred feet from the shore, he arrested the motion of
the canoe, and anchored his boat by holding fast to the delicate
but tenacious stem of one of the drooping plants. Here he remained,
awaiting, with an intensity of suspense that can be easily imagined, the
result of the hazardous enterprise.

It would be difficult to convey to the minds of those who have never
witnessed it, the sublimity that characterizes the silence of a solitude
as deep as that which now reigned over the Glimmerglass. In the present
instance, this sublimity was increased by the gloom of night, which
threw its shadowy and fantastic forms around the lake, the forest,
and the hills. It is not easy, indeed, to conceive of any place more
favorable to heighten these natural impressions, than that Deerslayer
now occupied. The size of the lake brought all within the reach of human
senses, while it displayed so much of the imposing scene at a single
view, giving up, as it might be, at a glance, a sufficiency to produce
the deepest impressions. As has been said, this was the first lake
Deerslayer had ever seen. Hitherto, his experience had been limited to
the courses of rivers and smaller streams, and never before had he seen
so much of that wilderness, which he so well loved, spread before
his gaze. Accustomed to the forest, however, his mind was capable
of portraying all its hidden mysteries, as he looked upon its leafy
surface. This was also the first time he had been on a trail where human
lives depended on the issue. His ears had often drunk in the traditions
of frontier warfare, but he had never yet been confronted with an enemy.

The reader will readily understand, therefore, how intense must have
been the expectation of the young man, as he sat in his solitary canoe,
endeavoring to catch the smallest sound that might denote the course of
things on shore. His training had been perfect, so far as theory could
go, and his self-possession, notwithstanding the high excitement, that
was the fruit of novelty, would have done credit to a veteran. The
visible evidences of the existence of the camp, or of the fire could not
be detected from the spot where the canoe lay, and he was compelled to
depend on the sense of hearing alone. He did not feel impatient, for
the lessons he had heard taught him the virtue of patience, and, most
of all, inculcated the necessity of wariness in conducting any covert
assault on the Indians. Once he thought he heard the cracking of a
dried twig, but expectation was so intense it might mislead him. In this
manner minute after minute passed, until the whole time since he left
his companions was extended to quite an hour. Deerslayer knew not
whether to rejoice in or to mourn over this cautious delay, for, if
it augured security to his associates, it foretold destruction to the
feeble and innocent.

It might have been an hour and a half after his companions and he had
parted, when Deerslayer was aroused by a sound that filled him equally
with concern and surprise. The quavering call of a loon arose from
the opposite side of the lake, evidently at no great distance from
its outlet. There was no mistaking the note of this bird, which is
so familiar to all who know the sounds of the American lakes. Shrill,
tremulous, loud, and sufficiently prolonged, it seems the very cry of
warning. It is often raised, also, at night, an exception to the habits
of most of the other feathered inmates of the wilderness; a circumstance
which had induced Hurry to select it as his own signal. There had been
sufficient time, certainly, for the two adventurers to make their way by
land from the point where they had been left to that whence the call had
come, but it was not probable that they would adopt such a course. Had
the camp been deserted they would have summoned Deerslayer to the shore,
and, did it prove to be peopled, there could be no sufficient motive
for circling it, in order to re-embark at so great a distance. Should he
obey the signal, and be drawn away from the landing, the lives of those
who depended on him might be the forfeit--and, should he negl

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